Women’s Health
Creating a Broad Coalition To Advocate for Women’s Health
 n a state as large and diverse as California, there are countless issues and policies that fall under the umbrella of women’s health. Local clinics that provide reproductive health services, regional networks of advocates working to increase funding for research, and organizations concerned about disparities in health outcomes among women, for example, approach women’s health issues from different – and often overlapping – perspectives.
Starting in 2001, a group of these organizations came together to establish the California Women’s Health Care Partnership (CWHCP) with the goal of building bridges among these diverse constituencies working for women’s health. Original members of the partnership included the California Primary Care Association (CPCA), the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum, Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, and the California Black Women’s Health Project.
 While the CWHCP started as a small working group, over time it blossomed into a broad-based coalition addressing cross-cutting issues. In June 2003, TCWF made a three-year core operating support grant of $225,000 to CPCA to formalize the partnership and link community-based organizations across the state into a network focused on improving women’s health.
CPCA staff coordinates CWHCP meetings, collects resources on women’s health policy issues, keeps abreast of new and emerging issues in women’s health, recruits new partners, and tracks the progress of legislation impacting women’s health.
“The member organizations bring their deep knowledge of the issues, and CPCA has the policy connections in Sacramento,” said Louise McCarthy, CPCA senior policy analyst and staff liaison to the partnership.
The partners meet every other month in Sacramento. The half-day meetings include time for training and skill-building around topics like policy advocacy and working with the media. CPCA invites policy experts to make in-depth presentations on policy developments related to women’s health, such as the Paid Family Leave Act. McCarthy also offers an update on the status of each policy priority identified by the CWHCP.
Since CWHCP member organizations work on a range of issues on behalf of different groups of women, they periodically take divergent policy positions. As a result, the partnership identifies a handful of bills or administrative measures each legislative session that members agree to address collectively, in addition to their individual policy agendas. A longer list of issues of interest is also developed and tracked. A monthly e-mail newsletter keeps members connected between meetings and is a tool to assist members in their advocacy work around the CWHCP and one another’s agendas.
The CWHCP continues to evolve as membership grows and new needs are identified.
“An unexamined partnership is not worth coordinating,” McCarthy said, paraphrasing Socrates. “We are constantly assessing how best to ensure participation by key players in the women’s health field.”
With increasing competition for government funding, a unified voice around women’s health issues is particularly important.
“The California Women’s Health Care Partnership serves as a bridge between local community-based organizations and statewide advocacy groups,” said Saba Brelvi, TCWF program director. “Linking these diverse groups is particularly important for engaging a larger segment of women’s organizations in advocating for women’s health policies in Sacramento.”
For more information, please visit www.cpca.org.
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