Lessons on increasing racial and health equity from Accountable Health Communities

BACKGROUND: The Accountable Health Communities model (AHC) was developed to test whether systematically screening for health-related social needs and referrals to community-based organizations to resolve unmet needs would affect healthcare use and costs for CMS beneficiaries. Purpose: The AHC model required applicants to develop Disparities Impact Statements (DIS), to increase the model's potential impact on health equity. METHODS: Authors conducted a thematic analysis of awardees' DISs to identify minority and underserved populations of focus, and the strategies awardees used to increase equitable participation in the model by minority and underserved populations. RESULTS: Most awardees focused on multiple minority and underserved populations and used multipronged innovative strategies to pursue equity goals. CONCLUSIONS: Considering recent health equity advancements as Executive Order 13985 and the release of CMS Innovation Center's Strategy Refresh, with highlights of health equity best practices from the AHC model, assessing use of DISs in the AHC model provides valuable lessons. Implications: Given HHS' broadscale promotion of DISs adoption as a viable quality improvement approach to achieving health equity, disseminating how the tool was used by a myriad of organizational types in the AHC model is critically important to improving future efforts to increase equity.