Public Health Services

The University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute (UWPHI) is part of the School of Medicine and Public Health, closely aligned with the Department of Population Health Sciences. We accelerate capacity to create equitable conditions for everyone to be healthy by advancing knowledge, practice, policy and system change across sectors. By providing evidence-informed strategies, actionable data and other resources tailored to myriad sectors, we equip people with the tools and resources that
grow community power and build equitable systems, structures, and policies.
UWPHI values partnerships and facilitating the exchange of expertise about health between and among those within the university and our many partners. Through these exchanges, we expand our understanding of what drives health and equity. And by shifting narrative and sharing stories that name what works — and what is needed — to ensure everyone’s well-being, we support nationwide efforts that improve health and advance our understanding of what it takes to achieve health equity. We
believe that only by working together toward a world in which we value one another and honor our connectedness will we achieve the healthiest possible conditions for all of us to thrive.

 Funding and Suggested Citation

Funding for this report is provided by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health,
Wisconsin Partnership Program. The report was designed by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Media Solutions. We are grateful for the input and feedback from audience and partner engagement in 2020 and 2021.
Suggested citation: The 2021 Wisconsin Population Health and Equity Report Card. University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, 2022.

 Glossary of Terms

Population Health
The health outcomes of a group of individuals, including the distribution of such outcomes within
the group. The field of population health includes health outcomes, patterns of health determinants, and policies and interventions that link them.
Health-Related Quality of Life
A non-mortality health outcome such as morbidity, disease burden or disability.
Health Disparity
This term describes numerical or statistical differences in health outcomes, such as mortality rate differences.
Health Equity
Assurance of the conditions for optimal health for all people. Achieving health equity requires valuing all individuals and populations equally, recognizing and rectifying historical injustice, and providing
resources according to need.
Health Inequity
Differences in health outcomes that are systematic, avoidable, unnecessary, unfair, and unjust.
Community Conditions
The determinants or factors that impact health outcomes. In the MATCH Framework for Health Equity (page 4) they include clinical care and services, social and economic conditions, and the built
and natural environment.
Power
In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Power is the ability to achieve a purpose. Whether or not it is good or bad depends upon the purpose.” Power is inherently related to asserting individual
and collective will.
Structural Racism
A system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity.
Oppression
The systematic subjugation of one social group by a more powerful social group for the social, economic, and political benefit of the more powerful social group.
Common Ground
A basis of mutual interest or agreement.
Social Solidarity
Emphasizes the interdependence between individuals in a society, which allows individuals to feel that they can enhance the lives of others. It is a core principle of collective action and is founded on shared values and beliefs among different groups in society.
Redlining
Race-based forcible displacement policies such as redlining limited where people of color could live and their standard of living. The practice of redlining effectively denied Black people access to bank loans at favorable rates.