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Essential Elements

What are they and why do they matter?

This component comprises three foundational subcomponents—collectively called the Essential Elements—that are prerequisites for multi-organizational teams advancing health equity. By rooting your work in community engagement, mutual trust, and shared vision early, your team builds the cohesion and stakeholder buy-in needed to address health inequities with a unified approach. Anticipating data needs from the outset positions your team to measure progress, adapt based on evidence, and demonstrate impact clearly—embedding accountability, inclusivity, and foresight into every stage of the Roadmap. Teams that intentionally integrate these elements achieve greater impact, stronger relationships, and more sustainable change.

The three Essential Elements are:

Partnering with Members and Communities

Center patient and community voices in planning and decision-making to develop solutions that are relevant, equitable, and informed by lived experience.

Earning and Sustaining Stakeholder Buy-in

Secure active commitment from leaders, staff, patients, and community partners to ensure initiatives are resourced, implemented, and integrated effectively.

Anticipating Data Needs and Opportunities

Plan proactively for high-quality data collection to track progress, identify disparities, and demonstrate impact throughout your initiative.

How and when to work through this component

Work through each subcomponent—Partnering with Members and Patients, Earning and Sustaining Stakeholder Buy-in, and Anticipating Data Challenges and Opportunities—and its accompanying materials to complete the Essential Elements component.

These elements are not one-time checkboxes. Return to them whenever your team is planning, refining, or troubleshooting a health equity initiative. If an initiative has stalled or faces unexpected barriers, revisiting these subcomponents can help your team realign and move forward.


Recommended timeline/allotment for this component:

Goal and Objective Setting:

About the Roadmap Goal and Objective Setting Tool

This tool is designed to facilitate goal setting and completion for your team. The tool will allow your team to:

  1. Record goals which align with the various Roadmap components
  2. Record objectives, time frames, and target completion dates, among other important items for each goal
  3. Monitor progress of goals per Roadmap component

Your team is welcome to engage with this tool as much or as little as it would like, and is helpful, in the development, implementation, and evaluation of your health equity initiative. We encourage you to use this tool to ensure clear goal setting and promote consistent communication, accountability, and progress within your team. This tool is designed to be used over time as your team progresses through the Roadmap and your initiative. This is in no way intended to be used one way by all teams. This is meant to help you progress through the Roadmap component(s) on which you are working at a given time and you may reach your goals in any order. We welcome you to consult your AHE TA lead on getting started with this tool.

Each Roadmap component is listed as a separate tab. Navigate to the desired Roadmap component via the task bar at the bottom of the webpage to add, edit, or view goals. Hide certain tabs as needed to narrow your view to specific Roadmap components or the snapshot. Changing the status of a goal will automatically shift the Snapshot view for the specific Roadmap component.