The Quest For Health Equity

This book focuses on the achievement of health equity. It proposes pragmatic, feasible plans to greatly reduce them or perhaps eliminate them. Health is taken here in its most global sense, as defined by the WHO: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity", which includes the achievement of one's full career potential (eg: equality of opportunity for minorities to become public health professionals). In this book, the author address disparities existing in several populations to include (but not be limited to) low-income, racial and ethnic minorities, women, children, low literacy, disabled, GLBTI, as well as other groups who are victims of health disparities. While the needs of these populations are discussed openly and candidly, the author vigorously fights stereotyping of specific groups. The book will expose the institutionalised, personally-mediated and internalised mechanisms, which cause or perpetuate differences in opportunities, stresses and exposures as well as in health care access and quality. Currently, health disparities represent the most important challenge of public health. This book proposes to unveil often undetected, neglected aspects of health disparities embedded in all aspects of health and healthcare as well as medical research. Concepts are discussed based on critical appraisal of available evidence in current literature. Uncomfortable issues such as racism and discrimination in health and health care are discussed, respectfully but openly. These issues are never easy to talk about; however, being too comfortable often means very little change. Being uncomfortable can be a stimulus for change.

My Quest for Health Equity is a vital resource for current and rising leaders.

Reading this book is like sitting down with Dr. David Satcher to hear stories of leadership and lessons learned from his lifetime commitment to health equity. Dr. David Satcher is one of the most widely known and well-regarded physicians of our time. A former four-star admiral in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, he served as the assistant secretary for health, the surgeon general of the United States, and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before founding the eponymous Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine. At the core of his impact on public health, he is also a lifelong leader for civil rights and health equity. Born black and poor in the deep South, Dr. Satcher was a victim of an unjust health care system: he almost died of whooping cough at the age of two because Jim Crow laws meant that his black doctor could not admit him to a hospital. That experience was the first of many that shaped him as a leader and a healer deeply attuned to social inequity—someone who was determined to make a positive difference. In My Quest for Health Equity, Dr. Satcher takes an inspiring and instructive look inside his fifty-year career to shed light on the challenge and burden of leadership. Explaining that he has thought of each leadership role—whether in academia, community, or government—as an opportunity to move the needle toward health equity, he shares the hard-won lessons he has learned over a lifetime in the medical field. Drawing on his early memories, medical school days, experience in the civil rights movement, and professional highs and lows, Dr. Satcher touches on a number of topics, including • the essential qualities of leadership • leading from science to policy to practice • the importance of clear communication and continual learning • the need for workplace discipline • confronting failure • specific health issues, including the obesity epidemic, reproductive health, and mental health stigma • team approaches to leadership • and much more In this book, readers will discover a template for using leadership roles of all types to eliminate health disparities. My Quest for Health Equity is a vital resource for current and rising leaders.

Brazil's leadership role in the fight against HIV has brought its public health system widespread praise. But the nation still faces serious health challenges and inequities. Though home to the world's second largest African-descendant population, Brazil failed to address many of its public health issues that disproportionately impact Afro-Brazilian women and men. Kia Lilly Caldwell draws on twenty years of engagement with activists, issues, and policy initiatives to document how the country's feminist health movement and black women's movement have fought for much-needed changes in women's health. Merging ethnography with a historical analysis of policies and programs, Caldwell offers a close examination of institutional and structural factors that have impacted the quest for gender and racial health equity in Brazil. As she shows, activists have played an essential role in policy development in areas ranging from maternal mortality to female sterilization. Caldwell's insightful portrait of the public health system also details how its weaknesses contribute to ongoing failures and challenges while also imperiling the advances that have been made.

Authored by highly respected nurse educators, leaders, and scholars, this text focuses on the power of nurses and how they can make substantial contributions to improve the health of all populations. It delivers an in-depth examination and analysis of current issues and determinants of health as outlined by Healthy People 2020 and addresses AACN’s Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice. Along with principles, pathways, and imperatives pertinent to achieving health equity, thetext discusses the evolution of thinking from eliminating health disparities to achieving health equity, and examines population-based and population-specific inequities in health status and outcomes. Highlighting the importance of interprofessional collaboration, it surveys timely initiatives, programs, and professionals—within and outside of the health sciences—who are important partners in efforts toward achieving health equity. Chapters are highly templated to include objectives, key concepts, critical-thinking questions, discussion questions, and resources. Key Features: Focuses on the power of nursing to make substantive contributions to improving the health of all populations Examines principles, pathways, and imperatives pertinent to achieving health equity Discusses economic, environmental, personal, social, and structural factors that impact health status and outcomes Highlights the importance of interprofessional collaboration in achieving health equity Addresses AACN’s Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice Demonstrates key concepts and stimulates reflection through critical-thinking and discussion questions Purchase includes digital access for use on most mobile devices or computers

Health Equity: A Solutions-Focused Approach is a comprehensive textbook that illustrates existing conditions of health disparities across a range of populations in the United States, positions those disparities within the broader sociopolitical framework that leads to their existence, and most importantly, presents specific ways in which health equity solutions can be designed and implemented. Presenting current theoretical foundations, cultural context, and evidence-based models and interventions all in one, this textbook provides students with the basis to achieve greater health equity in their communities. Edited by award-winning authors and featuring contributions from diverse experts in public health, sociology, psychology, and medicine, this groundbreaking text goes beyond a traditional approach to risk factors and disparities and emphasizes the central role that health equity initiatives must play in public health research and practice. The book is divided into three sections, with Section I focusing on providing the context of health equity research and practice. Chapters are structured in such a way that both new and experienced students in the field will develop a deeper understanding of topics such as prejudice and discrimination; frameworks and theories; and research and collaboration approaches. Section II addresses the current knowledge of specific populations impacted by issues related to health equity, including African American, Latinx and Hispanic, Asian, American Indian and Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, LGBTQ, Veteran, People with Disabilities, and many more. Authored or co-authored by members of the community being discussed, each of these chapters summarizes how health disparities impact the group, ongoing population-specific models of disparities and equity, emerging programs for achieving health equity, coverage of the most relevant aspects of intersectionality, and concluding exercises such as case studies and current events. Section III then highlights the role of cultural humility in achieving health equity. With its solutions-focused and community-affirming approach, Health Equity provides graduate and undergraduate students of public health with evidence-based models to help advance health through diversity, inclusion, and social justice. Key Features: Origins and Theories – Discusses the sociocultural and political origins of health disparities and the major theories that underlie an understanding of health equity Solutions-Focused – Describes emerging models and gives best practices in designing new programs Diverse Population Coverage – Provides historical context, sociocultural dynamics, and population-specific evidence-based programs from the voices of the communities being discussed Intersectionality Perspective – Highlights the role that overlapping and interdependent identities play in promoting health equity and the interventions that build from this perspective Case Studies and Real-World Examples – Demonstrates how to apply health equity improvement approaches in different contexts eBook access –Included with print purchase for use on most mobile devices or computers Instructor’s Packet – With an Instructor’s Manual, PowerPoint slides, Test Bank, and a Sample Syllabus

“Paul Farmer brings his considerable intellect, empathy, and expertise to bear in this powerful and deeply researched account of the Ebola outbreak that struck West Africa in 2014. It is hard to imagine a more timely or important book.” —Bill and Melinda Gates "[The] history is as powerfully conveyed as it is tragic . . . Illuminating . . . Invaluable." —Steven Johnson, The New York Times Book Review In 2014, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea suffered the worst epidemic of Ebola in history. The brutal virus spread rapidly through a clinical desert where basic health-care facilities were few and far between. Causing severe loss of life and economic disruption, the Ebola crisis was a major tragedy of modern medicine. But why did it happen, and what can we learn from it? Paul Farmer, the internationally renowned doctor and anthropologist, experienced the Ebola outbreak firsthand—Partners in Health, the organization he founded, was among the international responders. In Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds, he offers the first substantive account of this frightening, fast-moving episode and its implications. In vibrant prose, Farmer tells the harrowing stories of Ebola victims while showing why the medical response was slow and insufficient. Rebutting misleading claims about the origins of Ebola and why it spread so rapidly, he traces West Africa’s chronic health failures back to centuries of exploitation and injustice. Under formal colonial rule, disease containment was a priority but care was not – and the region’s health care woes worsened, with devastating consequences that Farmer traces up to the present. This thorough and hopeful narrative is a definitive work of reportage, history, and advocacy, and a crucial intervention in public-health discussions around the world.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.