Talking About Our Work

Community

A group of individuals sharing one or more characteristics such as geographic location (e.g., a neighborhood), culture, age, or a particular risk factor.

Community-Led Solution

WCS identifies as a Community-Led Efforts Intermediary. Our primary role is to engage, organize, mobilize and support Community Stakeholder-Led efforts to shift the power dynamic to move government and other powerful entities to act in the interest of their community according to what community members see as important. We do this by providing funding, critical supports and coordinated efforts around collective accountability, public advocacy and community development.

Community-Oriented Solution

A solution meant to improve outcomes or reduce harm to people in a community. Community-oriented solutions include but are not limited to community-led solutions. 

Determinants

Causal factors hypothesized to affect health outcomes. Determinants can refer to such factors as demographic and population (host) factors; environmental factors, such as disease vectors or transmission agents (e.g., food or water); social, economic, educational, healthcare, cultural, or other systems; and preventive interventions.

Disparities

Disparities refer to instances where a person experiences differential treatment or outcomes based on their race or ethnic background, gender, socioeconomic status, or differing abilities.

Equity

The notion of being fair and impartial as an individual engages with an organization or system.

Equality

Ensuring that every individual has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives and talents. It’s also the belief that no one should have poorer life chances because of the way they were born, where they come from, what they believe, or whether they have a disability.

Evidence-Based Method

A strategy for explicitly linking practical actions or approaches to scientific evidence of the effectiveness and/or other characteristics of such practices.

Institutional racism

The ways that institutional policies and practices create different outcomes for different racial groups. The institutional policies may never mention any racial group, but their effect is to create advantages for whites and oppression and disadvantages for people from groups classified as non-white.

Intersectionality

The acknowledgement that multiple power dynamics/‘isms’ are operating simultaneously—often in complex and compounding ways—and must be considered together in order to have a more complete understanding of oppression and ways to transform it.

Racism

The historically rooted system of power hierarchies based on race—infused in our institutions, policies, and culture—that benefit white people and hurt black people, indigenous people, and other people of color [BIPOC].

Structural or Systemic Racism

The most profound and pervasive form of racism, it is the normalization and legitimization of an array of dynamics—historical, cultural, institutional and interpersonal—that routinely advantage whites while producing cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for black people, indigenous people, and other people of color.