Reparations Project PROJECT OVERVIEW
OVERVIEW
The Reparations Project is a four year Community Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR) Project. The project works to define systemic, economic, and interpersonal reparations in the context of health for a geographically defined place, in this case Hennepin County.
YEAR 1 IS FUNDED BY HENNEPIN COUNTY
With a unanimous vote, the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners has seeded the Reparations Project as a bold opportunity to reinvest in novel opportunities to address the public health crisis that is racism. The one-year, $250,000 investment is an opportunity to further connect with communities most impacted by the legacy of healthcare harms and build a solid foundation for the full four-year pilot project.
We will utilize this community wisdom to refine the scope of the work and the Reparations Project and offer recommendations to Hennepin County for next steps. While this project is funded by Hennepin County and therefore focuses on the historically constructed County borders, the impact extends well beyond a geographic boundary.
TIMELINE
Year 1
Year one develops a sustainable project infrastructure aligned with the values of mutual benefit and shared power. This includes articulating the infrastructure for a project-specific empowerment model that is accountable to individuals staying in and around Hennepin County and most impacted by healthcare harms.
Key Deliverables
- Convene national partners engaged in reparative strategies.
- Project accountability plan
- Project-specific sustainability plan
- Initial listening sessions
Year 2
With sustained funding, year two moves toward defining systemic, economic, and interpersonal reparations in the context of health. Additionally, initial work to identify possible implementation routes, funding, and opportunities to move beyond defining and into action take shape.
Key Deliverables
- Identify place-based operational definitions of systemic, economic, and interpersonal reparations in the context of health
- Identify operational criteria for the eligible population healthcare reparations aims to serve
- Identify partner healthcare setting(s) for implementation
- Develop infrastructure for implementation and evaluation of objectives 2.a and 2.b
Year 3
With sustained funding, year three expands the work of the second year by refining the definitions and implementation plan. Additionally, implementation training begins, evaluation metrics are developed, and implementation begins.
Key deliverables
- Training of the implementation team
- Development of evaluation protocol
- Roll-out of a pilot in the partner healthcare system
Year 4
With sustained funding, evaluation of the first four years is completed and key learnings are shared widely. This year would include any significant efforts for implementation beyond the initial rollout: policy efforts, community campaign, or other initiatives.
Key Deliverables
- Evaluation implementation
- Dissemination of findings and recommendations
FAQs
The Reparations Project is a project housed within the Resource Redistribution strategy of the Healthcare Reparations Cooperative. The four-year definitional project will define systemic, economic, and interpersonal reparations in the context of health in Hennepin County, MN.
The goal of this project is to answer the following research questions:
What do reparations mean in the context of health [in Hennepin County]?
How can the implementation of place-based reparations in health transform disparate community health outcomes?
The Reparations Project addresses resources as a fundamental driver of health, aligning with the Cooperative’s work and Resource Redistribution strategy. This project weaves public health’s fundamental cause theory (Link and Phelan 1995; Phelan et al. 2004), Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò’s future-facing vision of reparations (Táíwò 2022), and the seminal 2022 report from Harvard University’s FXB Center for Health and Human Rights on the role of reparations in public health (Bassett et al. n.d.).
This project is important as it actively addresses healthcare as a site of harm and repair as a process of transformation. The landscape is primed, and the foundational research exists. This project has the potential to transform the landscape of health and healing in Hennepin County, Minnesota, and beyond.
This project has been stewarded by Cooperative members, non-members, local public health leaders, and city and county officials.
Medical racism, race-based medicine, and bio-racism (Fields and Fields 2022; Yearby, Clark, and Figueroa 2022) are byproducts of and producers of hierarchical systems of oppression, such as racism, in the United States and beyond. The categorical groupings that advantage some and disadvantage others are socially constructed from oppositional relationships that are informed by the time and place of the dominant category at play. This project commits to reparations being a tool for future-facing world-building and therefore assumes the malleability of socially constructed categories of oppression and that the privileges/ disadvantages afforded to various intersectional identities are not fixed.
There is often the pressure stemming from a burden of proof that claims we need more proof inequities exist. The Reparations Project assumes there is enough proof and counters the need for more evidence before action can be implemented. This project assumes the landscape of healthcare perpetuates harm.
- Time, effort, and resources are overly pushed toward investigating a problem. The Reparations Project assumes we are overdue for trying something radically different and investing in solutions. This project assumes the majority of the time and resource investment is solution and application-oriented.
- White supremacy and positivist research methodology reinforce perfectionism and outcomes. The Reparations Project assumes the process is just as, if not more important, than the outcome and has many learnings to offer. This project assumes the path of inquiry is additional investment in solutions and creative processes.
- Attempts to intervene in health inequities and disparities often reinforce a zero-sum mentality that views collective health as having a limit where there is only so much health to go around. The Reparations Project assumes health is not a zero-sum game and instead takes inspiration from the Combahee River Collective’s assertion that if “Black women [and intersectionally oppressed communities] were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression” (Combahee River Collective 1977). This project assumes there are solutions that further collective liberation.
- Reparations and reparative initiatives are often framed as navigating past harms. The Reparations Project orients toward a forward-facing endeavor that builds a more just and loving future in dialogue with past harms. This project addresses a health and healing futurity and assumes a connection to present-day health disparities and structural violence.
- This project is intentionally designed to be responsive and iterative to best address the unforeseen moments of learning that will be elevated throughout this journey. This project has big potential and must remain pliable in order to remain accountable. This project assumes flexibility, creativity, pliability, and responsive learning as a core value of the work.
In fall 2024, the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted to fund the first year of the project (through July 2026). At this point, funding for the remaining three years is unclear.
This project is designed and written to serve as a place-based template that can be adapted by other geographic locations. So that if another city, county, or state wanted to define systemic, economic, and interpersonal reparations in the context of health, they could use this project and adapt it for their context.
Hennepin County leads the state in diversity and population. Additionally, Hennepin County hosts a Level 1 Trauma Center that is also a safety net hospital. These make the County a primary geographic place for this project.
This project prioritizes individuals and organizations representing the communities most impacted by healthcare harms. Here, the most impacted by healthcare harms refers to individuals and communities dynamically situated at the intersections of Blackness, Indigeneity, Queerness, Transness, and Disability.
This project is a move toward a more just future in health, and repair is essential to collectively build that future. Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò’s offers a future-facing, constructive view of reparations that we model this project after (Táíwò 2022).
The first four years of this project are definitional and intentionally focused on collectively understanding what these terms mean in this time and place. The goal is to build power along the way so that the next phase of implementation has a strong contingency of supporters to enact the collective definitions of systemic, economic, and interpersonal reparations in the context of health.
This project welcomes individuals and organizations representing the communities most impacted by healthcare harms. Here, the most impacted by healthcare harms refers to individuals and communities dynamically situated at the intersections of Blackness, Indigeneity, Queerness, Transness, and Disability.
Initial listening sessions are scheduled to begin in 2026. Check back to the project’s landing page for more information!