A health system-community partnership to advance health equity

This article describes how Northwell Health—the largest health care provider in New York State—and over one hundred community organizations across our New York City metropolitan service area organized a taskforce around the principle of health equity in order to distribute the first available COVID-19 vaccines. This Health Equity Taskforce (HET) has since diversified to address an array of community and population health disparities, prioritizing the wisdom of communities to better understand local contexts and guide our approach. This approach incorporates several existing public health and social justice principles while maintaining flexibility to identify communities’ needs and address their priorities. We also discuss challenges we have encountered along the way and reflect on how we have endeavored to adapt to these challenges, remain empirically focused, and build durable partnerships that improve health—especially for the most vulnerable people in our region.