Center for Community Health Innovation

Centering partnerships with frontline communities to improve social determinants of health for all.

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About

The Center for Community Health Innovation (CCHI) works with community partners to address systemic factors that cause disproportionate health outcomes for long-underserved racial and socioeconomic groups in the United States and globally. Our work recognizes that health care access, economic and job stability, the natural and built environment, housing status, and other social determinants are key to shaping and improving health outcomes.

Our Work

CCHI’s projects address four cross-cutting priority areas: access to oral health, climate change, displacement and gentrification, and workers’ rights. Each focus area emphasizes building power in frontline communities and workforces, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and using law and policy to improve public health for all populations.

Alongside our grassroots partners, CCHI co-creates innovative policy solutions that improve social determinants of health in cities and neighborhoods — using a combination of law, policy, strategy, and coalition-building to bring community solutions to scale at every level. By centering community priorities and expertise at every stage of work, we can help pioneer solutions to improve comprehensive and holistic health outcomes, developed with and for the people most impacted.

Our Projects

2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup: Labor and Human Rights

Activating grassroots labor and human rights organizations across 16 host cities for the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in North America.

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Global Lessons for Improving Social Determinants of Health

Applying novel approaches for addressing long-term structural poverty and inequality in the United States.

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Just Purchasing Consortium

Building a movement to bring together workers and universities to make processing plants into safe, healthy, and just workplaces for all.

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See Our Full List of Projects

Featured Event

In October 2025, CCHI — in partnership with the McCourt School of Public Policy — convened its first meeting at Georgetown University as part of a year-long cross-national dialogue series to explore interventions for improving social determinants of health from Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, and South Africa, and ways to implement and adapt those interventions to localities in the United States. 

The event featured CCHI directors, Jennifer Li and Sara Hoverter; Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin; Professor Bradley Hardy; McCourt faculty, practitioners from the case studies; and experts in U.S. domestic policy, including elected officials, representatives from local government associations, and community-based organizations. 

Our Team