2025 Report: Relevant Readings

These resources represent relevant research and evidence for key topics and their connection to health in the 2025 Report  and are intended to offer additional framing and context for the Report findings. Relevant readings were identified using an adapted approach for evidence and policy analysis as outlined in the What Works for Health methods. The resources offered here should not be considered exhaustive or comprehensive.  

General  

Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. (n.d.) Montgomery Bus Boycott. Stanford University. {Retrieved March 1, 2025}

Theoharis, J. (2021). The real Rosa Parks story is better than the fairy tale. The New York Times.  

University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. (2019). County health rankings key findings report 2019: Secure, affordable housing.  

University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. (2022). County health rankings national findings report 2022: Advancing a just recovery for economic security and health.  

Structural Determinants of Health  

Bailey, Z. D., Krieger, N., Agénor, M., Graves, J., Linos, N., & Bassett, M. T. (2017). Structural racism and health inequities in the USA: Evidence and interventions. The Lancet, 389(10077), 1453–1463.  

Heller, J. C., Givens, M. L., Johnson, S. P., & Kindig, D. A. (2024). Keeping it political and powerful: Defining the structural determinants of health. The Milbank Quarterly, 102(2), 351–366.

Solar, O., & Irwin, A. (2010). A conceptual framework for action on the social determinants of health. World Health Organization Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. [Retrieved October 13, 2022].  

Power

Givens, M. L., Kindig, D., Inzeo, P. T., & Faust, V. (2018). Power: The most fundamental cause of health inequity? Health Affairs.  

Healey, R., & Hinson, S. (n.d.). Three faces of power. Grassroots Policy Project. [Retrieved March 1, 2025]

Heller, J. C., Fleming, P. J., Petteway, J. R., Givens, M. L., & Pollack Porter, K. (2023). Power up: A call for public health to recognize, analyze, and shift the balance in power relations to advance health and racial equity. American Journal of Public Health, 113, 1079–1082.  

Heller, J. C., Little, O. M., Faust, V., Tran, P., Givens, M. L., Ayers, J., & Farhang, L. (2023). Theory in action: Public health and community power building for health equity. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 29(1), 33–38.  

Michener, J. (2022). Health justice through the lens of power. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 50(4), 656–662.  

Pastor, M., Ito, J., Wander, M., Thomas, A. K., Moreno, C., Gonzalez, D., et al. (2020). A primer on community power, place, and structural change. USC Dornsife Equity Research Institute.

Community organizing and history of public health  

Fairchild, A. L., Rosner, D., Colgrove, J., Bayer, R., & Fried, L. P. (2010). The EXODUS of public health: What history can tell us about the future. American Journal of Public Health, 100(1), 54–63.  

Jimenez, C., & Heller, J. C. (2025). Community organizing and public health: A rapid review. BMC Public Health, 25, 669.