The EQUIP Equity Action Kit (Action Kit) is designed to help guide organizations in diverse health and social service settings who want to implement equity-oriented care. The guidance is offered in multiple aspects of the change process, including how to tailor action to each unique context, how to integrate with other initiatives, and how to evaluate equity and change.
Equity-oriented care (EOC) is about directing adequate resources to those with the greatest needs. It doesn’t mean treating everyone equally, because everyone doesn’t need the same thing. The aim of the EOC is to recognize and reduce:
- The effects of structural inequities (e.g., poverty, sexism, racism) on people’s access to and receipt of care, and access to the social determinants of health
- The impacts of multiple, intersecting forms of racism, discrimination and stigma
- The frequent mismatches between usual approaches to care and the needs of people most affected by health and social inequities
Because we conceptualize equity-oriented care as multi-dimensional, the Action Kit supports multiple entry points: cultural safety (CS) and anti-racism (AR) (including an emphasis on anti-Indigenous racism [AIR]), trauma- and violence-informed care (TVIC), and substance use health (SUH), which includes taking a harm reduction (HR) approach and reducing substance use stigma (SUS).