NCHE Announces 20 New Fellows for its Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing Program

Dr. Gail C. Christopher

The Fourth cohort of the Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing will focus on voting rights and immigration through the TRHT™ Law Pillar

WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES, October 27, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The National Collaborative for Health Equity (NCHE) today announced 20 leaders selected for the fourth cohort of its Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing (CoHLI). The program uses the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation™ (TRHT Framework) as its guide to strengthen the ecosystem of leaders championing racial and health equity in communities nationwide.

Launching in November, Cohort 4 is a focused, 12-month virtual leadership experience centered on the Law Pillar of the TRHT framework. To meet the urgency of the moment, this cohort brings together practitioners, advocates, scholars, and leaders whose work addresses systemic inequities in voting rights and immigration policy.

“We are delighted to welcome 20 exceptional new leaders at a moment when the rights to vote and to belong are being tested in communities across the country,” said Dr. Gail C. Christopher, executive director of NCHE. “These leaders are courageous, seasoned, and resolute in their mission to eradicate the false belief in a hierarchy of human value that perpetuates racism. I am eager to witness the transformative change they will bring to their communities.”

Launched by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in 2016, the TRHT framework is a transformative tool designed to foster enduring change by addressing the historical and contemporary impacts of racism. It addresses racial bias across five key areas — narrative change, racial healing and relationship building, separation, law, and the economy — and offers actionable strategies to heal past wounds and rectify present-day disparities. Dr. Christopher spearheaded the development of TRHT while serving as a senior advisor and vice president at the Kellogg Foundation.

“Our democracy and our health are bound together,” said Dr. Christopher. “When people are kept from the ballot box or forced to live in fear because of their immigration status, whole communities carry that harm in their bodies. Law has been used both to entrench the belief in a hierarchy of human value and to dismantle it. These leaders are working right where law meets lived experience. They understand that changing laws, policies and practices may not be enough. We must also heal the relationships and narratives that shape how laws are written and enforced.”

Each Cohort 4 fellow will receive a $10,000 stipend to support their continued work and participation, along with mentoring and resources to accelerate actionable progress in their communities. Through monthly virtual learning, fellows receive several layers of long-term support:

• Mentorship: customized guidance alongside peer-to-peer sharing circles.
• Skill development: practical tools and resources to navigate and disrupt institutional racism.
• National network access: integration into a growing community of more than 120 CoHLI alumni and national subject matter experts across multiple sectors.

“Healing begins with imagining a country and a world in which the harms caused by separation and injustice have been acknowledged and repaired,” said Dr. Christopher. “From pediatric clinics in Oakland to voter organizing in Mississippi, this cohort shows what becomes possible when leaders bring both courage and compassion to the work of building a just, fair, and equitable democracy.”

To learn more about the Cohort 4 participants, please visit the Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing on our website.

About NCHE
Launched in 2014, the National Collaborative for Health Equity is a young organization with a long history and body of work. NCHE was incubated in 2005 as the Health Policy Institute, one of several institutes at the Joint Center for Political & Economic Studies. Today, NCHE develops new initiatives to advance the health and racial equity movement while leveraging this history as a national convener and coalition builder for over a decade. NCHE provides an extensive body of data, tools, and resources to equip leaders from historically marginalized and excluded communities to improve the conditions that shape health. These tools include leadership support, policy analysis, data mining and analysis, and community organizing and mobilization to address a range of factors that are the ultimate determinants of health and well-being.

Michael K. Frisby
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