Office of Health Equity Research
Health is achieved when all individuals have the opportunity to reach their optimal health, quality of life, and wellbeing.
Health equity science is a field that examines the patterns and factors that contribute to health inequities, their mechanisms of impact, and the development, implementation, and effectiveness of models, methods, measures, and strategies to eliminate disparities and improve equity. It develops insight into the extent and outcomes of inequities and how they are experienced by individuals and populations, and builds evidence to guide interventions and policies to eliminate them.
Health equity science should move beyond repeated replication of the documentation of disparities towards action-oriented research to eliminate these disparities.
Health equity research requires an intentional effort to value all individuals and populations equally, recognize and rectify historical injustice, partner and co-create with communities, and provide resources according to need. Health equity research must include accurate measures of social, environmental, community, policy, and healthcare factors and contexts which may influence individual and population health disparity experience and outcomes.
Citations: NIH Health Equity Factsheet (nih.gov)
Research Priorities
With community partners, we have identified health inequities impacting our region to address through focused research.
Researcher Directory
Our faculty members,
healthcare providers, scientists, and trainees whose work aligns with our mission.
Spotlight
Meet Wiljar Schanck, M.Ed
Schanck works closely with the Center for Community Health & Prevention’s Office of Health Equity Research focusing on community-based research and interventions. Schanck emphasizes the importance of understanding cultural and familial contexts in all mental health work. She participates in research with the Mt. Hope Family Center, where she investigates how family structures and gender expectations can influence youth outcomes. She then uses data to teach parents, communities, and institutions like Mt. Hope Family Center and UR how to build relationships that alleviate mental health stressors.
Our Mission
The office is part of the fifth pillar of URMC’s Equity and Anti-Racism Action Plan, which aims to establish URMC as a national leader in health equity research and education, specifically focusing on the impact of racism on health and development. The office will support innovative health equity research across URMC to foster a deeper understanding of the root causes of health disparities and the burdens experienced by excluded groups, and to facilitate the translation of findings into more equitable care.
We are particularly focused on five high priority areas defined by our community:
- improving access to safe and affordable housing,
- violence prevention,
- chronic disease prevention and management,
- decreasing re-incarceration through policy,
- and promoting well-being to prevent mental health and substance use disorders.
The office is currently assessing the health equity education needs and research capacity at URMC and actively collaborating with community partners to determine the health equity research direction for URMC. The office supports researchers in multiple ways, including providing pilot funding, promoting new research partnerships, and developing training and technical resources.
Our People
OHER founding director, Edith Williams, Ph.D., has a background in Epidemiology and Community Health with a robust research program primarily focused on disease outcomes among Black/African American women with lupus. Williams has set the strategic vision for the office and is building it as a central resource for health equity researchers across the University of Rochester.
OHER’s strength also lies in its diverse and committed community of collaborators, which is founded upon the voluntary membership of more than 130 health equity research faculty from across the university. These faculty members represent a variety of disciplines: nursing, environmental medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, family medicine, psychiatry, oral health, immunology and rheumatology, pediatrics, and public health.