Purpose: The aim of this study was to learn from doulas the components of their services that might best serve low-income, African American (AA) women and to show the significance of doulas in helping these women have healthy, positive, birth experiences. Methods: Ten doulas were recruited from a local community doula program and through word-of-mouth referrals from participants and completed in-depth interviews. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using Atlas.ti software to identify emerging themes. Thematic saturation was achieved in interviews. Results: Several themes emerged from the interviews including: (1) The influence of similarities of race, culture, and lived experience on doula care; (2) How doulas often provide birthing persons with support and resources beyond birth; and (3) How doulas recognize the institutional biases that exist in the health care system and try to mediate their effect on birthing persons. Conclusions: These themes highlight how doulas can support birthing persons to mitigate the negative effects of social determinants of health, specifically racism and classism, and highlight potential avenues for doulas to consider when working with birthing persons who have low income and are AA.

The 6-step community empowerment model was replicated in communities with different geographical, racial, and age backgrounds from the original application. Resident groups of Blue Ribbon Health Panels (BRHPs) in federally funded senior housing in Pennsylvania followed the 6 steps to identify community health issues, to develop strategies to address priority issues, and to implement the strategies in collaboration with partner agencies. The 6-step model served as an operationalization strategy of community empowerment by facilitating quick accomplishments of communities' desired outcomes, legitimizing and motivating BRHP efforts. Community capacities to actively participate and collaborate influenced the model's progress in this replication study, as did partner agencies' capacities to adhere to the community-based participatory and collaborative orientation of the project. Community capacity development and partnership facilitation would be important for a community empowerment project, as well as consistent and clear communication among everyone involved in the process.

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Health equity describes a state in which all individuals and communities are able to attain their full potential in health. Reducing avoidable inequities in access to health care, quality of care, and health status requires the efforts of a multitude of disciplines within public health and beyond. It also requires public health education and training that critically examine population vulnerabilities, individual and community factors, and the broader social determinants that create and reinforce inequities. In this article, we describe the modification of a graduate-level Certificate in Health Equity designed to prepare professionals to address some of our nation's most pressing health problems and inequities. Health disparities have been described in Healthy People 2020 as health differences that are closely linked with social, economic, or environmental disadvantage and by others as "systematic, plausibly avoidable health differences adversely affecting socially disadvantaged groups" (Braveman et al., 2011; Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2015). Health disparities, resulting from historical and current social and economic disadvantage, include those by race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, rurality, education or income, or disability (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

Poverty is one of the most significant determinants of health inequity in the United States, yet students of the health professions are more likely to come from higher rather than from lower income families, separating them economically from many of the individuals they will serve. Poverty simulations can expose health professional students to experiences of those living in poverty and provide a more holistic, structural perspective of poverty that informs their later practice. We sought to understand the current state of poverty simulations being utilized throughout the United States. Through a review of abstracts via Ovid and Google Scholar, we identified nine articles that focus directly on describing poverty simulations in university-based programs with health or social work university students and that incorporate some form of pre- and postevaluation methods. After a careful review of these articles, we describe the distinct differences in components and contexts between the simulations, including Bridging the Gaps–Pittsburgh’s Experiential Poverty Exercise, and how effects on students is determined across the various simulations. Additionally, we review how unique aspects of the Bridging the Gaps–Pittsburgh’s Experiential Poverty Exercise can serve as a model for providing multidisciplinary graduate students the opportunity to increase their knowledge and shift attitudes about people experiencing poverty before working with them as health professionals. In presenting the current status of these simulations, we seek to develop recommendations regarding the components and context of poverty simulations as well as approaches to assessing effects.