Prevention Institute 2024 Accomplishments

Our 2024 accomplishments are organized by four interrelated strategies:

  1. Community-centered Practice: Partnering with communities in support of community-driven change.
  2. Practitioner Knowledge & Skill Development: Strengthening practitioner capacity to achieve equitable health, safety, and wellbeing.
  3. Policy & Systems Transformation: Changing policies and systems to produce equitable health, safety, and wellbeing.
  4. Momentum Building: Strengthening a prevention and health equity ecosystem while shifting fields, norms, and narratives.

We never do this work alone. And we are grateful to our many partners: communities and community members, practitioners, government agencies and systems leaders, foundations, public health organizations, and many other organizations advancing equitable health outcomes. These accomplishments would not be possible without our shared values, learning, and partnership.

Community-centered Practice: Partnering with communities in support of community-driven change.

Partnered with power-building organizations championing park and green space equity across the country.

Prevention Institute completed the inaugural phase of the People, Parks, and Power (P3) initiative, which brought together 14 community-rooted, power-building organizations to address deep-seated park and green space inequities in Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities across the country over two years. Through technical assistance and peer-to-peer learning, the P3 cohort grew their capacities in community data collection, community power-building, policy and systems change advocacy, and shifting community narratives to support park and green space equity over the two-year grant period. A P3 evaluation found an approximately 200% increase in community base building and leadership development for park and green space equity as an outcome. Over 90% of the communities met important benchmarks for progress, with over 75% of them achieving policy or systems change within the grant period.

Building on these important accomplishments, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and PI proudly launched Phase 2 of P3 in July 2024, which continues with seven organizations from the original cohort that represent diverse approaches and strategies to reverse land use inequities related to parks and green space in their communities. This cohort has emphasized policy solutions, including those that advance community-led stewardship and ownership of land, address environmental justice and climate resilience, and pursue inclusive development approaches to prevent displacement.

Funder: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Image by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Centered community power and healing to prevent domestic violence and advance health equity in communities.

Prevention Institute continued to steward Safety and Healing in Networks of Equity (SHINE). Formerly Safety Through Connection (STC), this initiative engaged five California collaboratives to address the root causes of domestic violence and promote safety and healing through systems, cultural norms, and policy change. SHINE collaboratives have advanced housing and economic justice, holistic youth and family support, and community-based healing through state legislative advocacy at ENACT Day, guaranteed income pilot projects, and ongoing community mobilization of resources and workforce development opportunities. In 2024, PI developed a framework with evaluation partner Eternal Knot Evaluation to capture SHINE’s unique approach, journey, and impact. PI also shared stories through blog posts, including Cultivating and sustaining community leaders in spaces of trust and belonging, Hope as memories of the future, hope as a practice, Act as an ecosystem to advance just policy solutions, and End gender-based violence by standing with Indigenous communities.

Funder: Blue Shield of California Foundation.

Image by Jennifer Ly.

Launched a new phase of the Intersections Initiative to foster inclusive, equitable development.

Prevention Institute and the St. Joseph Fund launched a new phase of the Intersections Initiative in South King County (WA) focused on equitable development and community wellbeing. Building on lessons learned from the work of coalitions in California, we explored the potential to scale the Intersections approach to new communities, beginning in the state of Washington. PI conducted a landscape analysis, resulting in the engagement of seven community-based organization (CBO) partners who had experience and insight in working with historically disadvantaged communities in the area. During the ensuing planning phase, PI and the CBOs assessed root causes of displacement, discussed the challenges of working upstream, and identified and uplifted community strengths and opportunities. As a result, the group expressed a desire for ongoing partnership to develop a collective vision for health equity and racial justice and advance a collective policy agenda in South King County.

Funder: St. Joseph Fund.

Image by Prevention Institute.

Established a learning community of Black- and brown-led community-based organizations taking a public health approach to preventing violence.

Prevention Institute established Strategies for Youth and Neighborhood Centered Safety (SYNC Safety), a supportive community of leaders and community-based organizations (CBOs) at the forefront of addressing community violence. SYNC focused on building the capacity of Black- and brown-led CBOs to take a comprehensive public health approach to community safety and violence prevention. With core partners, PI built a cohort of 30 CBOs from across the country. Participants engaged in coaching sessions and five interactive learning labs on topics such as using a public health approach, infusing racial justice in safety efforts, shifting policies, and supporting young leaders. PI and its partners hosted a three-day convening in Houston to engage more deeply in topics like sustainability and storytelling for impact. The convening brought together CBO representatives who came in as a virtually connected group and left with renewed commitment to their work, and strong connections with self, each other, and their intergenerational roots.

Through SYNC, CBOs cultivated deep relationships and expanded their networks, integrated resources and expertise into their work, and grew their appreciation for the powerful and essential work each group does in their communities.

This project was supported by Cooperative Agreement No. NU38OT000305 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Image by Prevention Institute.

Supported community-led collaboratives promoting mental health and wellbeing.

Prevention Institute continued to partner with the Hogg Foundation on the Communities of Care (CoC) initiative, which entered its sixth and final year in June 2024. Nine community-based collaboratives worked throughout the Houston region to support mental health and wellbeing for youth and their families by amplifying their voices through efforts like Connect Community's Stories at The Garden and East End Communities' Photovoice Exhibition and highlighting the importance of lifting up the lived experiences of community to inform decision-makers. The collaboratives also identified opportunities for youth and resident leaders to advocate for local priorities. For example, Babies in Baytown's parent leaders educated elected decision-makers and the business community about a child care center tax exemption to benefit low-income communities and Reaching Richmond Community Collaborative's Junior Street Captains presented opportunities for park and green space improvement to the City of Richmond Parks and Recreation Board.

PI and the Hogg Foundation convened the CoC collaboratives twice to deepen their relationships with each other and conduct long-term sustainability planning. The collaboratives also engaged in a Policy Peer Exchange to act on shared state advocacy goals to promote educational equity and access to mental health resources. Finally, PI supported Asian Americans Attaining Awareness and The Future Is US at the Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee's Interim Hearing on Children’s Mental Health to share testimony from their residents and youth.

Funder: Hogg Foundation for Mental Health.

Image by Healthy Outdoor Communities.

Created spaces for healing, connection, and sustainability for leaders of color at the intersection of social justice and systems change.

Prevention Institute continued to steward AESOP's (Activists Engaged in Sustaining our Purpose/Power/Potential) Leadership Network, which concluded its second year of exploratory programming where community activists and leaders across Texas co-created spaces to connect, learn from one another, and share strategies for managing their stress and reducing burnout related to the challenges of social justice and racial equity work. The initiative reached 60+ leaders in 2024, with one third becoming involved with co-creating activities that continue to shape the network offerings, such as culturally relevant resources, small group discussion circles, and in-person gatherings. These have provided opportunities for participants to engage in activities like using music and storytelling for grounding, connecting with the arts for self-expression, and developing strategies to reduce stress around fundraising and organizational change to build resilience.

Funder: Hogg Foundation for Mental Health.

Image by the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health.

Practitioner Knowledge & Skill Development: Strengthening practitioner capacity to advance equitable health, safety, and wellbeing.

Promoted upstream and equitable investments of opioid settlement funding nationwide.

With support from the CDC’s Division of Overdose Prevention, Prevention Institute and its partners provided capacity-building opportunities to state and local opioid settlement fund decision-makers to identify and invest in upstream, evidence-based approaches that prevent opioid and other substance misuse and overdose. In partnership with Big Cities Health Coalition, ChangeLab Solutions, RTI International, and SheRay’s & Associates, LLC, PI delivered direct technical assistance to the State of Colorado Attorney General’s Office and developed a set of written capacity-building materials to inform the use of settlement dollars, including: an online resource hub that garnered more than 1,600 total views, a set of guiding principles to support settlement fund decision making and strategy development, and a three-part webinar series that drew more than 600 multisector attendees.

Our joint efforts affirmed opioid settlement funds as an essential opportunity to invest in healthy, equitable, thriving communities, and help alleviate the longstanding harms caused by the opioid epidemic. Our work increased an understanding of strategic investment approaches across the prevention continuum and how to partner with communities and people with lived and living experience in decision making.

This project was supported by Cooperative Agreement Number NU38OT000305 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Image by Prevention Institute.

Built the capacity of local practitioners to prevent violence and promote safety through public health approaches.

Prevention Institute provided comprehensive support to the Riverside University Health System (RUHS) through coaching, technical assistance, and targeted training opportunities for public health staff, county leaders, and community partners. These efforts focused on enhancing community engagement strategies to prevent violence and promote safety. These efforts strengthened the internal capacity of RUHS staff in fostering meaningful collaborations with community partners. Through the facilitation of three virtual training sessions, we brought these diverse groups together to explore best practices in narrative framing, policy and systems change, all through the lens of racial justice, with a shared vision of fostering safer communities.

PI also worked with Healthy Places by Design and the CDC Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity to develop an action guide for practitioners working at the intersection of violence prevention and the built environment. Its purpose is to share strategies that improve equitable access to safe spaces to be physically active and socially connected for all youth and young adults, particularly those at higher risk of poor health and safety outcomes. The action guide is based on policies, programs, and practices from the Community Violence Prevention Resource for Action developed by the Division of Violence Prevention at the CDC.

Funders: Riverside University Health System; The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation; and Healthy Places by Design.

Image by Matt Gush on iStockPhoto.

Provided technical assistance on health equity to CDC grantees.

Prevention Institute provided technical assistance on health equity, coalition building, and community engagement to six community coalitions that are recipients of CDC’s Division of Physical Activity, Nutrition, and Obesity (DNPAO) grant programs: State Physical Activity and Nutrition (SPAN), High Obesity Program (HOP), and Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH). Technical assistance activities ranged from provision of live coaching and feedback with community coalitions to the development and dissemination of a health equity and racial justice virtual training for state partners. As a result, community coalitions increased their ability to implement strategies that authentically engage community residents, sustainably build coalition infrastructure and integrate health equity and racial justice principles and practices into their work.

Funders: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity via the Veritas Management Group.

Image by Prevention Institute.

Strengthened practitioner knowledge and skills nationwide through conferences and webinars.

Prevention Institute staff shared our work and approach with practitioner audiences at conferences and webinars, including the Association of Black Foundation Executives Annual Conference, the National Association of County and City Health Officials Annual Meeting, and with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. PI also hosted a virtual teach-in, which launched PI’s new tool, The Timeline of Resistance.

Additionally, PI staff presented at the American Public Health Association’s (APHA) Annual Meeting in Minneapolis in late October. APHA is one of the largest annual gatherings of public health professionals from multiple sectors across the country, and provides a valuable opportunity to share lessons learned, generate new ideas and relationships, and look ahead to the future. The theme was “Rebuilding Trust in Public Health and Science.” PI staff presented on the following topics:

Funders: The W.K. Kellogg Foundation; Blue Shield of California Foundation; St. Joseph Fund; and Cooperative Agreement Number NU38OT000305 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Prevention Institute also relies on core support and unrestricted funds to meet requests for sharing resources that benefit the field of public health.

Image by Rachel Davis.

Policy & Systems Transformation: Changing policies and systems to produce equitable health, safety, and wellbeing.

Championed structural solutions to strengthen health equity and racial justice in the California state government.

Prevention Institute continued to champion structural solutions to advance policy and budget priorities for community health, safety, and equity in California. Our community-based partners have affirmed that investments into the conditions that contribute to health are not just “good to have” during strong economic years, they create essential community infrastructure that allows communities to thrive and be resilient through difficult times. Against a backdrop of a $46.8 billion deficit and budget cuts, PI worked with advocates across California to advance health equity and racial justice policies across our legislative and budget priorities; co-organized 90 participants, including youth, parents, seniors, and small business owners to educate legislators about issues related to the social determinants of health at the 20th annual ENACT Day in Sacramento; partnered with Black-led organizations to advocate for the establishment of statewide reparations for descendants of chattel slavery; supported the California Racial Equity Coalition (CREC) in its development of a Racial Equity Framework for state government as a member of the CREC; and provided technical assistance to the California Funders Workgroup for Prevention and Equity to support strategic alignment amongst health funders on state-level policy issues.

Prevention Institute relies only on unrestricted funds to support our grassroots and direct lobbying efforts. Non-lobbying support was provided by The California Endowment; Blue Shield of California Foundation; and The California Wellness Foundation.

Image by ENACT Day communications team.

Advanced a System of Prevention for Racial Justice and Health Equity.

Prevention Institute completed a three-year portfolio of work to build bridges across public health practice, health equity, and racial justice called Advancing a System of Prevention for Racial Justice and Health Equity (A System of Prevention). Drawing on community-centered policy analysis, narrative strategy, and partnership development, A System of Prevention created shared learning opportunities and resources to transform public health practice by bridging health equity and racial justice. Key resources include:

  • The Timeline of Resistance: An interactive tool and resource that uncovers and amplifies the connections between public health and social justice movements. By drawing connections between past and present-day movements that work toward dismantling systems of racism and injustice, the Timeline offers valuable lessons to strengthen public health practice in service of equity and racial justice. Following a piloting phase in 2023, the final Timeline was launched during a May 2024 Teach-In event and shared more broadly during the American Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting in October.
  • Timeline of Resistance Playlist: This curated playlist highlights songs by musicians of color that celebrate and reflect acts of resistance drawn from the Timeline’s “Liberation Towards Anti-Racism” section.
  • Advancing a System of Prevention Podcast Episode: The episode shares details on specific tools and resources; emphasizes the importance of cultivating partnerships with racial and social justice organizations; and highlights the challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned over the three-year period.

The full suite of resources and content produced through A System of Prevention, including past webinars, is available here.

Funder: The W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Image by Prevention Institute.

Advocated for federal actions to support healthy, equitable, and thriving communities.

Prevention Institute partnered with health equity, civil rights, social and racial justice, and public health advocates to pursue policies and investments that strengthen community-centered health, safety, and wellbeing. PI also supported over 45 advocacy actions throughout 2024; examples include:

In late October, PI released our 2025-2026 Federal Policy Priorities and Federal Advocacy Commitments. Inspired by the learnings from policy partnerships at the intersection of public health, health equity, and racial justice, our priorities are grounded in an affirmative policy agenda. This affirmative agenda reflects our steadfast commitment to advancing bold policies that build a transformational future, even as we respond to current policy opportunities and limitations. Our priorities are:

  1. Strengthening the Public Health Ecosystem and Aligning Investments with Health Equity and Racial Justice
  2. Community Protective Factors
  3. Community Safety
  4. Community Mental Health, Wellbeing, and Resilience
  5. Climate Justice and Resilience
  6. Immigration Justice as Essential to Public Health

Prevention Institute relies only on unrestricted funds to support our grassroots and direct lobbying efforts. Non-lobbying support to strengthen our policy partnerships was provided by The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Image of the United States Capitol Building from iStockPhoto.

Launched a statewide partnership to explore long-term, durable funding for prevention and health equity.

Prevention Institute continued to work with its partners to explore options for long-term, durable funding strategies in California. This project–leveraging $5 million from The California Endowment’s Social Bond–was designed to resource local organizations and advocacy coalitions who seek to advance public funding solutions that improve conditions for health, safety and wellbeing.

In 2024, PI extensively researched models of community-led movements and health equity advocacy efforts in California’s racially diverse and historically marginalized places. This process included an in-depth literature and policy scan, numerous subject matter expert interviews, and a series of planning retreats to develop the contours of an initiative to support local and statewide advocacy for health equity. Our planning process shaped how this work will move forward including:

  • Looking to “bake” equity into government policies and procedures at every stage;
  • Centering community self-determination, emphasizing the alignment of resources and power to address inequitable conditions and norms, and bridging health equity and racial justice by prioritizing investments that reverse generations of historic harm in funded work; and
  • Launching Investing in an Equitable Future to support this work in several communities. In addition to supporting local advocacy efforts, PI will lead opportunities for collective learning and capacity-building among the funded partners.

Funder: The California Endowment.

Image, “Collaboration in Care,” by Franceska Gamez.

Provided leadership on integrating prevention and health equity approaches through advisory committee and working group participation.

Prevention Institute’s staff participated on multiple advisory committees and working groups at the local, state, and national levels. In these roles, our staff provided guidance across topics like health equity, mental health, and community violence prevention to various national nonprofits, state governments, and policy advocacy groups. Through this work, we help to advance policy and systems change that is rooted in health equity and prevention.

Such groups include:

  • California Department of Public Health State Rape Prevention and Education Advisory Group
  • California Department of Public Health Behavioral Health Advisory Committee
  • California Prop 64 Advisory Group on youth substance use prevention
  • California State of Equity Advisory Group
  • CDC Violence Prevention Partners Network
  • Domestic Violence Prevention Enhancement and Leadership Through Alliances: Achieving Health through Addressing Disparities (CPEDV DELTA AHEAD) State Leadership Team
  • Families USA Health Equity Task Force
  • FRIENDS National Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention–Prevention Mindset Institute Partner
  • Health Equity Collective Policy Workgroup (Houston, TX)
  • Health Equity Collective Community Voice Workgroup (Houston, TX)
  • International Transformational Resilience Coalition Steering Committee
  • Los Angeles County Community Prevention and Population Health Task Force
  • National Association of Climate Resilience Planners National Advisory Group
  • Parks Needs Assessment (PNA+) Coalition (Los Angeles County)
  • Trust for America’s Health Framework Advisory Group on A Blueprint for Strengthening Public Health for the Next Administration and Congress
  • Trust for America’s Health Well Being Working Group Steering Committee
  • Vital Villages Network National Advisory Group

Funders: The W.K. Kellogg Foundation; The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation; FRIENDS Prevention Mindset Institute; the PNA+ Coalition; Blue Shield of California Foundation; The California Endowment; and The California Wellness Foundation.

Prevention Institute also relies on core support and unrestricted funds to meet advisory requests that benefit the field of public health.

Image of multicolored hands from iStockPhoto.

Momentum Building: Strengthening a prevention and health equity ecosystem while shifting fields, norms, and narratives.

Uplifted contextual and experiential evidence as imperative for equitable and informed decision-making.

Prevention Institute worked with CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention on Uplifting Contextual and Experiential Evidence (UCEE) to illustrate the value and importance of contextual and experiential evidence alongside best available research evidence. Contextual experience describes measurable factors in the community that may impact the success of a prevention strategy, and experiential evidence refers to the collective expertise and lived experience of those who have practiced or lived in a particular community.

PI conducted a landscape scan and interviewed subject matter experts to understand how grant-making bodies have worked with community groups and residents to create, uplift, and integrate contextual and experiential evidence as effective forms of evidence in decision-making. We presented three webinars to inform the project and share findings with key public health stakeholders. The webinars also provided an opportunity to engage with community and practitioners on their experiences in applying this approach in their own work and to broaden their perspectives regarding evidence-based decision-making. In October, PI released the Uplifting Contextual and Experiential Evidence: Promising Practices and Recommendations report, with approaches, examples, and recommendations to integrate all three forms of evidence into decision-making, contributing to a growing call in the public health ecosystem to integrate community voice and perspective into decision-making.

This project was supported by Cooperative Agreement No. NU38OT000305 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Image by Nye' Lyn Tho.

Built momentum and networks for park and green space equity.

Prevention Institute continued to play a key role in advancing narratives that support park and green space equity. PI’s People, Parks, and Power (P3) initiative amplified the important learnings and insights of Local Partners to a broad range of community practitioners, academic researchers, equity advocates, and philanthropic partners. Through a series of profiles highlighting P3 community-specific approaches, conversations with green space funders, and engaging sessions at the 2024 Greater and Greener conference, PI uplifted P3 stories to help shape the direction of park and green space equity across the nation. Through our partnership with Berkeley Media Studies Group and Dr. Alessandro Rigolon of the University of Utah, we infused the core pillars of P3—power-building, park and green space equity, and policy and systems change—into new resources available to community-based organizations and equity advocates in support of their work. The connections between park and green space and issues of environmental justice, climate resilience, housing equity, and racial justice continue to inform and expand the field of land use transformation.

Funder: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Image by Rio Holaday.

Accelerated a public health approach to violence prevention through community-centered data, practice, and narrative change.

PI worked with Big Cities Health Coalition (BCHC) and RTI International to promote the local adoption of a public health, community- and racial equity-centered model for gun violence prevention focused on improving data and changing narratives. Together, we identified metrics relevant to community safety that effectively illustrate local health conditions and the drivers that contribute to inequities and community safety, and which take into account multiple forms of data, including contextual and experiential evidence. We also convened an Equity Metrics Workgroup of local health departments and national partners, who offered recommendations on the metrics. These insights will inform changes to the Big Cities Health Inventory data platform used by public health agencies.

Recognizing the importance of strengthening our contributions to community narrative power, PI also engaged local and national partners in shaping strategies to shift the dominant narrative of community safety from policing and punishment to public health and community-centered approaches. This includes an emphasis on community safety narratives that reinforce abundance over scarcity; collectivism and interdependence over individualism and self-reliance; and liberation and freedom over oppression and control. These efforts lay the foundation for public health practices and narratives that prioritize community-rooted solutions for safe communities.

Funders: Kaiser Permanente Center for Gun Violence Research and Education and The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation.

Image by Nye' Lyn Tho.

Contributed to the design and founding of the Public Health for Community Power Coalition.

Prevention Institute contributed to the creation of the Public Health for Community Power Coalition, an organized body of non-governmental public health organizations that cultivates and builds support for social justice campaigns and movements led by community power-building organizations (CPBOs). Born from Human Impact Partners’ national scan of public health and community power-building groups, the coalition seeks to address the gap in public health’s engagement with community power-building efforts. Guided by the priorities of CPBOs, the coalition will engage in advocacy to strengthen the political, social, environmental, and economic drivers of health equity and racial justice. Advocacy strategies include and are not limited to, unified narrative and data strategies, mobilization of individuals and organizations, lobbying, and other collective advocacy tactics. PI is a steering committee member of the coalition.

Funders: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation via Human Impact Partners.

Prevention Institute relies only on unrestricted funds to support our grassroots and direct lobbying efforts.

Image by Human Impact Partners.

Elevated community-centered narratives in our policy strategies and practices.

In 2024, Prevention Institute further grounded our efforts in an affirmative long-term vision of the world we want to inhabit and strengthened our capacity to develop policy and narrative strategies that ask for what communities want and deserve.

An affirmative policy agenda describes a positive vision and hope for the future; focuses on long-term transformational change even while working through a challenging policy context; views policy passage as a starting point, not the end, by also emphasizing equitable policy implementation and evaluation; and seeks to grow, shift, and share power and resources with communities through the policy process.

To complement our policy priorities—and because we believe that how we show up as advocates and partners matters as much as the policy actions we take—we also formalized and released a companion brief describing the core commitments that guide our advocacy approach:

  • Amplifying community-centered solutions and leadership
  • Championing health equity and racial justice
  • Upholding the values of connection, dignity, and interdependence
  • Weaving multiple forms of evidence
  • Elevating community-centered narratives
  • Expanding and redefining our policy partnerships
  • “Showing our work” for greater accountability and transparency

Prevention Institute relies only on unrestricted funds to support our grassroots and direct lobbying efforts. Non-lobbying support focused on integrating narrative strategy and advocacy was provided by The W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Image by Nye' Lyn Tho.

Credits:

Prevention Institute