Equity Facts Card Deck
13 cards exploring how social equity, justice, and structural conditions shape community health outcomes.
The Equity suit is one of four suits in the GuideBox to Healthy Places Card Deck. Its 13 cards examine the social and structural conditions — income, housing, race, access to resources — that shape health disparities across communities. Each card pairs visual content with research-grounded facts about equity and health in the United States.
Why Equity Is Central to Community Health
Health is not distributed equally across American communities. Significant and persistent disparities exist by race, income, geography, and other social factors — disparities rooted not in individual behavior but in the structural conditions that shape where people live, what resources they can access, and what environmental burdens they are exposed to. These structural conditions are shaped by planning, policy, and design decisions made over decades.
The Equity Card Deck helps communities and practitioners confront these realities directly. Rather than treating health disparities as inevitable or mysterious, the cards connect specific structural conditions — redlining, concentrated poverty, unequal park access, discriminatory housing policies — to measurable health outcomes, creating a foundation for conversations about what equitable community design actually requires.
Social Determinants in Practice
Social determinants of health — housing stability, income, educational access, food security — are among the most powerful predictors of health outcomes. A family in substandard housing with high levels of mold and lead exposure faces health risks that no amount of access to healthcare can fully offset. A community without safe places to walk or play faces barriers to physical activity that shape chronic disease rates for generations. Understanding these connections is essential for planners and designers who want their work to advance — rather than perpetuate — health equity.
The Equity cards support this understanding in workshop and community settings, where candid conversations about race, class, and power are often difficult to initiate but are essential for developing truly equitable community plans and designs.
Other Card Deck Suits
Access Suit
13 cards on mobility, walkability, and transportation access.
Building Suit
13 cards on indoor environments and healthy building design.
Environment Suit
13 cards on green space, air quality, and ecological health.
Explore the Full GuideBox
Access all GuideBox materials, including the full Card Deck, Topic Booklets, and Health Assessment Lens.
View GuideBox