The Equity Framework

The word "Equity" means "justice according to natural law or right; freedom from bias and favoritism; fairness".

The Equity Framework, which is starting to be utilized across the Country, promotes taking a direct look at the various forms of bias and prejudice, which includes: individual, institutional and systemic forms of racism.

Equity mandates that a group's race, or any other demographic categories it belongs to, should not be the main determinant of its success.

Equity requires strategies that promote fair treatment, equal access, opportunity and advancement for all people, while at the same time striving to identify and eliminate barriers that are preventing the full participation of some groups.

Tackling Equity issues is not easy and it requires understanding of the root causes of outcome disparities within our society. Because countless national and local studies have shown there are major health disparities for some groups in our society, we’re confident that Proclaiming Racism as a Public Health Crisis is a great step toward achieving Social Equity in our region.

And that brings us to this picture of a lake!

When I think of Equity, I’m reminded of this old saying:
When you look over a lake and see that several fish, here and there, have died and floated to the surface, you think, there just something wrong with those particular fish. But when later you see hundreds or thousands of fish floating on the surface of that same lake, what do you think now? You think: we need to look at the Lake! That’s an Equity Framework!