Doctors have long known that factors such as food insecurity, housing instability, transportation problems and financial problems can impact a patient’s health. Patients who are now returning to physicians’ offices and hospitals for routine checkups, deferred elective procedures, prescription refills and more are presenting with conditions made worse by lost jobs and the struggle to…
After George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, state governments and our health care system have increased attention to racism and its impact on health equity. There has also been heightened awareness that health equity is a problem for communities other than racial and ethnic minorities, including persons with disabilities, people residing in rural communities, non-binary…
In October 1991, the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit brought together close to 300 Black, Latino, American Indian, Pacific Islander, Asian American, and other activists of color to elevate the environmental justice movement, which aims to address the inequitable distribution of environmental risks among vulnerable populations. The movement was founded by people…
After nearly a year of health equity work, Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra said the department will continue to make justice in the medical space a top priority. “Dr. King famously called injustice in health the most inhumane and shocking form of inequality,” Becerra began in a keynote address during…
During the pandemic, health care providers and institutions ramped up innovative, sustainable and increasingly digital ways to improve population health outcomes, and I expect this trend to continue. For over 20 years, I’ve advised health care provider teams across the U.S. on leveraging and incorporating digital technology and tools like patient portals, health trackers and…
When I graduated from medical school and took the Hippocratic Oath, I vowed to not just treat the illness on a patient’s medical history form but to treat the person behind the diagnosis. To do this well, clinicians need to understand the whole person and the context in which they live — their race, gender…
States are increasingly focusing on health equity, and in particular racial health equity, as a key priority within their Medicaid programs ― often explicitly building health equity requirements into managed care contracts. Ensuring equitable access to high-quality and comprehensive primary care is central to achieving meaningful progress toward this goal. As a result of structural…
In March 2015, the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice issued a scathing report on policing practices in Ferguson, Missouri, where Michael Brown, an 18-year-old Black man, had been shot and killed by police the year before. It described a police department that routinely issued citations to generate revenue for the city’s…
There are few silver linings related to the COVID-19 pandemic, but one that stands out is the growing recognition that health equity must be an essential guiding principle for health care organizations going forward. The broader health care system suffered greatly due to the coronavirus outbreak that has infected tens of millions and killed hundreds…
The global pandemic spurred a rapid uptake of telehealth for nearly all health care providers and has permanently changed how health care is delivered. At present, providers and insurers are grappling with how to balance telehealth and in person care, focusing discussions around reimbursement models and logistical considerations. In this article, the authors discuss whether…