Developing Health Leaders to Champion Health Equity

The Satcher Health Leadership Institute’s Health Policy Leadership Fellowship Program at Morehouse School of Medicine, established in 2009, is a multidisciplinary training program designed to provide physicians and postdoctoral professionals with the specific knowledge, skills, and experiences to prepare them for leadership roles promoting and implementing policies and practices to reduce disparities and advance health equity.  Each cohort is intentionally multidisciplinary, with fellows bringing unique backgrounds and expertise, including physicians and professionals in public health, psychology, health law, and public policy. The program leverages their diverse backgrounds to develop a broad health and health equity-in-all-policies lens that intentionally looks beyond conventional sectors and silos to address health and health care issues and develop leaders prepared to champion health equity. 

The fellowship’s major focus areas include leadership development, health policy, and health equity, with concentrations in both behavioral and sexual health. The curriculum includes formal and informal instruction, policy leadership shadowing and learning experiences, and community-based practicum experiences. In addition, fellows have practice, teaching, and/or research responsibilities with academic departments and complete a health policy research project.

Based on our five-year experience, the following lessons have emerged:  (1) a commitment to diversity and health equity are fundamental values that must be integrated across across the training program; (2) a social determinants of health and health-in-all-policies lens needs to be integrated across program activities; and (3) strategic collaboration and partnerships with agencies and community-based organizations are critical to ensuring training experiences that prepare leaders to advance health equity in all policies.