Parents Know Best

Early Childhood Health Equity (ECHE) work seeks to strengthen early childhood systems to support healthy child development and reduce health inequities and disparities that can have a lifelong impact. This case story describes how family-led data collection and advocacy lead to increases in early childhood funding in Alameda County, Calif.

It accompanies a related set of issue briefs titled Addressing Early Childhood Health Equity in Communities and States that synthesize the recent work of the ECHE Landscape Project and highlight the themes and findings that emerged across the project activities. Key themes we also gathered through the ECHE Landscape survey, including cross-sector relationships, operationalization of health equity, adaptation of initiatives to the COVID-19 pandemic, data and measurement, sustainability, and connections between local and state ECHE initiatives.