The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) held a health equity roundtable on August 24th in Broomfield, Colorado, bringing together nine states and territories including Colorado, Guam, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Colorado Lieutenant Governor Dianne Primavera gave welcome remarks and shared about Colorado’s work to advance health equity through several initiatives, such as the Colorado Disability Funding Committee and the Colorado Commission on Indian Affairs.
Attendees also heard from Hattaway Communications about best practices for framing and messaging health equity priorities. The second session of the roundtable was on centering disability equity as a key part of health equity policy. A speaker from the Johns Hopkins University Health Research Disability Center spoke about her lived experience with a disability and discussed state disability data needs, while a speaker from the Colorado Office of Community Living shared about how the state integrates equity into its Medicaid disability programs.
A speaker from the Colorado Division of Insurance presented on the Colorado Option, a health insurance initiative designed to improve access, affordability, and health equity for consumers purchasing health insurance in the individual and small group markets in the state. Attendees also heard from Vermont and Colorado about the states’ approaches to integrating equity into the policy proposal and budgeting processes. State and territory teams participated in peer discussion and shared about health equity goals and next steps to achieve these goals.
The NGA Center is pleased to continue supporting this work and will produce a brief this fall summarizing the past year of the project. The NGA Center is grateful to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for supporting this work.
Please contact Anna Heard (aheard@nga.org) for more information on the roundtable.
