Published: March 2025

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Addressing structural racism requires structural solutions. Racial and/or health equity impact assessments (R/HEIAs) help predict how a proposed policy, action, budget, or decision is likely to create, worsen, prevent, or reduce racial inequities. R/HEIAs are similar to fiscal notes or environmental impact assessments except that they focus on racial inequities. They analyze how a proposed law or decision is likely to impact structural factors that affect racial and other types of disparities. Because people hold multiple, overlapping identities, of which race is only one, R/HEIAs can help detect and prevent unfair and inequitable outcomes for people across a community. When designed properly and used effectively, R/HEIAs embed equity considerations into government processes and elevate health equity and anti-racism as a critical outcome in decision-making. The number of states and localities that use R/HEIA processes to assess proposed legislation has grown in the past decade as more jurisdictions explore R/HEIA laws or implement R/HEIAs in other ways. Many places also are using R/HEIAs in other types of decision-making processes, including rulemaking, planning, budgeting, and grantmaking. To deepen understanding of how R/HEIAs are being applied to proposed laws, researchers at the Public Health Law Center and the University of Minnesota School of Public Health collaborated on a study to analyze how R/HEIAs are being applied to food-related legislation at the state and local levels. This report summarizes the study processes and findings, and includes recommendations for key R/HEIA policy components.

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