Health equity education and research for better real-world outcomes

In the Clinic: Integrate equity across the full scope of your healthcare practice

IHECJ creates cultural awareness training and programming to help healthcare providers build a culture of equity. We examine the political, economic, and cultural systems that create unique healthcare assets and challenges in order to develop internal experts and advocates for health equity within your organization.

High-quality Curricula

All IHECJ programming is created and facilitated by educators, researchers, scientists, and community organizers. As experts in health equity, we help organizations understand how and why unjust social conditions cause illness and disease for stigmatized populations.

Tailored Programs

Each engagement is tailored to our specific partner organizations and the social and geographical frame of reference in which they operate. Incorporating this context helps partners identify and intervene in their own practice when bias leads to unequal care.

Immersive Training

Our programming delivers deep integration of equitable practices and knowledge of social determinants of health disparities. We also integrate real-world, experiential opportunities to contextualize patient experiences.

Actionable Results

Participants will learn to practice equity-oriented, person-centered care that helps people feel valued and welcomed. IHECJ also teaches how to be an effective advocate for better policies and structural change that ultimately leads to better health.

Our Approach

Equitable healthcare requires skilled and compassionate providers who operate from an equity mindset. Our workshops, lectures, and courses help providers see clinical encounters within a broader context and foster a culture of equity that reaches across all domains of the healthcare system.

Content Engagement

We use direct instruction to teach participants the deep relationship between social forces and health status.

Community Engagement

Hands-on experiential opportunities provide a lens to denaturalize injustice and contextualize real-world patient experiences.

Collective Engagement

Reflective practices and skills-based training help participants maintain compassionate practices in challenging circumstances.

IHECJ participants will learn how to:

Facilitate discussions within their organizations about how and why unjust social conditions cause illness and disease for stigmatized populations;
Identify and intervene in their own practice and with colleagues when bias leads to unequal care;
Practice equity-oriented, person-centered care that helps individuals seeking clinical services feel valued and welcomed;
Become an effective advocate for better policies.

district heat map of one part of Memphis

In the Community: Research for Community Justice

IHECJ partners with and directly supports community justice-oriented organizations and entities. Our resources and research can have a direct impact on local residents by creating more equitable communities in areas like housing, health, transportation, and education.

We center community members’ lived experiences to co-create research strategies. We help provide direct access to data and help to translate it so communities can take action in the form of grant writing, neighborhood plans, or civic communications that are rooted in clear and compelling data.

Rhodes President Jennifer Collins on the cover of the magazine published for Fall, 2023 and Winter, 2024.

Embracing Healthcare Futures

Learn how the Rhodes Institute for Health Equity and Community Justice, sparked by a Mellon Foundation grant, developed into an organization offering health equity education nationally and community justice initiatives locally.

Read the Article

Clients & Partners

"Kendra and her team presented the material, did their research, and said, ‘Here's what's happening in Chattanooga. Let me show you the maps. Let me show you the history.’ They held up a mirror, allowed us to look at ourselves and allowed us to decide what areas we need to be working on now, and where do we go from here? They didn't do the work for us, but they helped to facilitate that work."
- Betsy Kammerdiener, Market Director for Mission Integration, CHI Memorial Hospital

"They connect those dots for everyone who wants to listen, and in such a supportive manner so that you now can say, ‘This is why this is, this is the way it is, what can I do?’ The institute is genuinely a change agent for improved cultural consciousness within healthcare."
- Elly Yost, Interim Director for Nursing Education, Nurse-Family Partnership

"We wanted the education that we offered to go beyond a check-the-box activity for cultural competency. The Institute's work is perfectly aligned with our Humana health equity mission. We really think that this work helps us get to the root causes of health disparities and are hopeful that it's going to eventually help us turn the tide towards more culturally responsive care in the state."
- Kim Williams, Director of Health Equity, Population Health, and Community Engagement, Humana Healthy Horizons