Since its inception in 2003, the Center has been involved in a number of projects designed to reduce health disparities by advancing Health System solutions as well as solutions found by addressing the Social Determinants of Health, two core areas of work for the CEHD. Recognizing that long term solutions require both a global perspective as well as vastly increased attention to and capacity effect change at the micro and macro levels, Global Health and Leadership Training have emerged as additional core work areas for the CEHD.

The Center seeks to reduce health disparities by supporting research, training and interventions related to the causes of health inequities in society, developing new models for understanding and eliminating health disparities, and promoting policy change to effectuate health reform.

The Center works collaboratively with partners to advance research, provide training, and undertake action-based activities centered on recognizing the interdisciplinary, intersectoral, global and local nature of health challenges. In this sense, the CEHD understands health in a broad context, related to the physical, social and economic environment, and also related to social justice in the stratification of power and privilege in society which often work to create health inequities. The binding philosophy of the programs is to support ethically based, community and population health driven solutions, with a strong emphasis on demonstration projects suitable for scaling up to state or national levels.