Issue Category: Health Equity/Social Determinants of Health

April is Minority Health Month – Resources for Addressing Minority Health Issues

Being healthy requires more than access to healthcare. Numerous aspects of where we live, work and go to school – often called the social determinants of health – impact our overall well-being. For Minority Health Month, TFAH is sharing the following information on what communities can do to reverse the inequities that often lead to poorer health outcomes in minority communities.

Racial Healing and Achieving Health Equity in the United States: This 2018 issue brief highlights and acknowledges health inequities, the factors that influences them and highlights policy recommendations that can help the nation achieve health equity. TFAH issued the brief in conjunction with The Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation’s second annual National Day of Racial Healing, which is intended to identify key steps toward collective action to promote positive and lasting change across issues.
Advancing Health Equity: What We Have Learned from Community-based Health Equity Initiatives: This convening identified and examined promising practices and outlines core strategies of successful community-based health equity initiatives and recommendations for next steps in creating and advancing a policy agenda to promote community-based health equity.
Taking Action to Promote Health Equity – Using the Lessons from Cutting-Edge Practices to Improve Health and Well Being: TFAH’s Fall 2018 4-part health equity webinar series features national public health practitioners and community leaders sharing their experiences shaping and executing programs to increase health equity in their communities.  The webinar series is designed to inform a broad, national audience about compelling and replicable health equity initiatives and how to address the grass roots issues that will impact their success.
The State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America, 2018: This report highlights the latest obesity trends, policies, programs, and practices that can reverse the obesity epidemic, and Includes key recommendations for specific actions. New studies documenting national obesity rates and trends reinforce what we already know: obesity rates are alarmingly high; sustained, meaningful reductions have not yet been achieved nationally and racial, ethnic, and geographic disparities persist. For example, Black and Latino children and adults continue to have higher obesity rates than Whites and Asians.
Building a Community Roadmap to Health and Equity in Jackson, Mississippi: The health indicators for the Black population of Mississippi are significantly worse than for the White population. Black residents live on average 4 years less than Whites and have more deaths from cancer, heart disease, HIV and many other chronic conditions. The Mississippi Roadmap to Health Equity, Inc., a community-based organization in Jackson, is actively engaged in improving those statistics with its focus on changing the conditions in the lives of the low-income Black population.
Pain in the Nation Update: While Deaths from Alcohol, Drugs, and Suicide Slowed Slightly in 2017, Rates Are Still at Historic Highs: Deaths from synthetic opioids continue to rise sharply and suicides are growing at the fastest pace in years. More than 150,000 Americans died from alcohol- and drug-induced causes and suicide in 2017—more than twice as many as in 1999—according to a new analysis by Trust TFAH and Well Being Trust (WBT) of mortality data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2017, synthetic-opioid deaths were highest among males, Blacks, Whites, adults ages 18–54, and those living in urban areas. Additionally, over the past decade, suicide increased in nearly every state. However, there were substantial variations by demographics —with larger proportional increases among younger people and racial and ethnic minorities.
Promoting Health and Cost Control: How States Can Improve Community Health and Well-Being Through Policy Change: Prevention starts with people leading a healthy lifestyle. Yet certain populations, including racial and ethnic minorities have worse health outcomes than other groups. These inequities in health can often be attributed to differences in living conditions, exposure to traumatic events, and the lack of access to needed resources in their community, which in many cases are a result of discriminatory policies and practices.  There are several evidence-based policies that can be implemented to address these hurdles and close health disparities. TFAH’s new report, Promoting Health and Cost Control: How States Can Improve Community Health and Well-being Through Policy Change highlights 13 policies, all outside the healthcare sector, that if adopted by states can improve the health and well-being of their residents.
Ready or Not: Protecting the Public’s Health from Diseases, Disasters and Bioterrorism, 2019: Ready or Not provides an annual snapshot of states’ public health and emergency response preparedness. Many communities of color can suffer disproportionately during a disaster due to unequal access to services before and after an event. Community resilience and preparedness planning must recognize health inequities, address systemic barriers to services and ensure inclusive planning, especially for populations that may face a disproportionate impact of disasters.

Health Equity Leaders, Dr. Gail Christopher and Heather McGhee, Co-Host Webinar on the Impact of Racism on Health Outcomes and the Importance of Individual and Organizational Leadership in Efforts to Overcome Racist Beliefs

 

Gail C. Christopher, D.N.     Heather C. McGhee, J.D.        

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 14, 2018

Health Equity Leaders, Dr. Gail Christopher and Heather McGhee, Co-Host Webinar on the Impact of Racism on Health Outcomes and the Importance of Individual and Organizational Leadership in Efforts to Overcome Racist Beliefs

WASHINGTON, DC – Dr. Gail C. Christopher and daughter, Heather C. McGhee, two of the country’s most acclaimed social justice and health equity advocates, shared their insights on the impact of racism on health outcomes during a November 1 Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) webinar entitled: Creating Change Through Leadership: Two Extraordinary Leaders, a Mother and Daughter, Share their Experiences Promoting Racial Equity

“We have a moment in history where fear is driving levels of division and actual hatred that are unprecedented in my adult lifetime.  It makes us want to step away from this work.  But more than ever we have to step into this work.  We have to do it from a place not of animus and not of incivility but from a place of engagement, engagement for ourselves and for future generations.” – Dr. Gail Christopher

“I strongly believe that we do ourselves a disservice when we pretend that addressing racism is only or even primarily for the benefit of people of color.  The creation of this belief of racial hierarchy was something that fundamentally distorted not just the life experiences of people of color, but white people as well.” – Heather McGhee

Listen to the entire series here: Taking Action to Promote Health Equity – Using the Lessons from Cutting-Edge Practices to Improve Health and Well Being

 

 

Creating Change Through Leadership: Two Extraordinary Leaders, a Mother and Daughter, Share Their Experiences Promoting Racial Equity

This is the final segment of Trust for America’s Health’s 4-part web forum series: Taking Action to Promote Health Equity—Using the Lessons from Cutting-Edge Practices to Improve Health and Well Being.

Leadership is an essential ingredient in making lasting change to advance equity and population health. The last web forum in our series will feature two nationally known leaders discussing the connection between racism and health inequity and sharing insights about engaging all members of a community—including your own organization—in the common purpose of a just society with equitable opportunity.

The web forum speakers are Dr. Gail Christopher, the chair of the Board of Directors of Trust for America’s Health, and a longtime leader in philanthropy and the movement to eliminate discriminatory barriers to progress; and her daughter, Heather McGhee, the immediate past president and now a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos and a frequent national media contributor.

For the first time in a national forum, these two inspiring leaders will discuss how change is created at the individual, community, organizational and systems levels. They will offer concrete examples of how leaders can experience “inside out change” in order to be effective equity leaders. They will also focus on our nation’s unfinished work toward racial equity and the need to change the narrative and beliefs that fuel inequities. In addition, Dr. Christopher will discuss the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation initiative and Ms. McGhee will share insights about Demos’ internal Racial Equity Organizational Transformation process, what she’s learned from her friendship with a now-reformed racist C-SPAN caller, as well as Demos’ new research on how to talk about race and class.

This event is recommended for anyone working in public health, advocacy, community-based systems, education, faith-based organizations, hospitals/health systems, insurers, local and state health officials, and housing.