Roots of Health Inequity
Overview
The Roots of Health Inequity Course is a core product for the National Association of County and City Officials (NACCHO) with over ten thousand users since IK launched the original site in 2012. After working with NACCHO for over a decade to maintain the site, we were excited to partner again with the Health Equity and Social Justice team to take the Roots course to a new level by launching the Roots of Health Inequity Course Series.
About this project
The Roots of Health Inequity Course Series aims to educate public health students, professionals, and community members as to why not everyone in our communities live the same healthy lives and empower them with tools to make a difference. The free ten course series includes four new courses in addition to updated content from the original six courses. To enhance the learning experience, we’ve added new videos, interactives, graphics, improved layout, learning tools, and the AI Roots Course Assistant–making the course content more engaging and easier to navigate. In addition, group leaders can use the Groups tools to invite colleagues to a learning group and explore the content together.
IK's Mission
Convert over 800 pages of content into an easy-to-navigate and engaging educational content platform.
The IK approach
AI innovation
One challenge of having all of this great content is helping users figure out what they want to study. Our IK team developed the Roots Course Assistant to help curate a learning plan that’s specific to the user’s needs. Using the power of AI, we can help users to pinpoint content they want to study and move more quickly to engaging with the content. It’s a great tool for someone who is organizing study for a group or looking to share content ideas with a colleague.
Data visualization to enhance learning
Eight hundred pages is a lot of reading. We reshaped content into visual and audio experiences such as videos, podcast-like audio clips, and interactives. We designed a US map that helps the user understand the scale of difference between the top 1% and how much they own versus everyone else and how it evolves over 60 years. Have you ever thought about the racial categories on the US Census? Our interactive takes users on a journey through time, helping them to reflect on how our understanding of racial categories has evolved through the years. Watch the video clip below to see these and other interactives from the Roots of Health Inequity Course Series.
Content Strategy & User Experience
For the redesign, NACCHO enlisted subject matter experts as part of an Expert Advisory Group to assist in rewriting content and adding new content pertinent to today’s healthcare professionals. We worked with SMEs to develop content that is well-structured and easily to for all learners to understand. Using an easy to navigate content hierarchy, we built a course that is easy to navigate and search. Using the power of AI in our Roots Course Assistant to help users ask more complex questions about the content and find the right content for their needs.
Fully Responsive and Compliant
The Roots of Health Inequity is a fully responsive module, allowing learners to access the course on what ever device they prefer. And the site is built with accessibility in mind and all elements conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA guidelines.
The results
While over 10,000 students have completed this curriculum since its launch in 2012, the new Roots of Health Inequity Course series will be a serious upgrade for returning students and an appreciated resource for new users. Launched in July 2024 at the NACCHO 360 conference in Detroit, the Roots course will be a mainstay product for NACCHO for years to come.