Anchored by health care: Strategies for health systems
Categories: Health National Adaptation Plans, Net zero health systems, Action plans for sustainable low carbon health systems, Guidance document, Country experience, Global, Americas (Pan American Health Organization), Climate Resilient Health Systems, Low Carbon Sustainable Health Systems, Supply Chains
Publisher: Health Care Without Harm
This resource guides health care systems to strengthen their role as anchor institutions that foster equitable community health and climate resilience. It highlights the systemic challenges facing communities such as inequitable economic structures, climate impacts, and health disparities and outlines three models of anchor engagement that deepen partnership, power‑sharing, and accountability with communities.
The resource includes case studies illustrating how health care organizations can create independent anchor missions, collaborate through shared anchor tables, or convene equitable multi‑stakeholder partnerships to shift investments, procurement, and decision‑making toward community benefit. It also offers best practices to guide institutions in integrating anti‑racist principles, supporting community‑led initiatives, building collaborative governance structures, and aligning organizational operations with broader goals of health equity and climate resilience.
Overall, this resource aids health care administrations and facilities in transforming relationships with communities and expand their impact beyond clinical care, promoting structural change towards resilient and inclusive local economies.
Intended users
Ministries of health; Health care facility managers; Health care professionals.