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Health Equity
Objectives:
Definition of Health Equity
IAFP definition: Health equity is realized when each individual has a fair opportunity to achieve their full health potential. Achieving health equity requires treating everyone justly according to their circumstances: equality is an outcome of equity. Societal efforts must be undertaken to address structural inequalities that create group-differentiated access to resources, as well as differentiated vulnerabilities to harm.” (IHI, Healthy People 2020, Race Matters Institute, Structural Competency Workgroup, Am J Public Health)
This course equips doctors with the essential skills to provide comprehensive care for refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented immigrants. Presented by Resident member Dr. Victoria Kyerematen. The recording is available on the IAFPEducation YouTube Channel You can watch it and still earn CME credit if you follow the instructions in the Description section below the video.
Our member interest group webinars are supported in part by a grant from the AAFP Foundation Family Medicine Chapter Alliance, which is funded by members like you! Help programs like this continue to support family medicine by giving to the FMPC. Select “Chapter Grants” when making your gift online (www.aafpfoundation.org).
Earn free continuing medical education (CME) credits while gaining practical strategies for managing health conditions in adults with Down syndrome. The lead author and reviewer is IAFP member Brian Chicoine, MD founder and director of the Adult Down Syndrome Center at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. He was also named IAFP Family Physician of the Year in 2019.
These resources are available for members of the LGBTQI+ community in crisis to provide specialized support. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in Illinois is available 24/7 in either English or Spanish by calling or texting 988.
How-to start a community outreach initiative
Community Outreach for Primary Care Professionals
Presented by: Christina Wells, MD, MPH, MBA, DipACLM
Length: 24 minutes
AAFP EveryONE Project the online platform with education and resources to help define and address health equity.
Access the AAFP member-facing page with training resources here: Neighborhood Navigator | AAFP
Share this patient-facing page on FamilyDoctor.org with your patients and community: Neighborhood Navigator | Family Doctor
Here are first steps you can take:
1. Reflect on existing biases and privileges you may bring to the table.
2. Identify one socio-economic factor that may contribute to health inequity in your community.
3. Join our IAFP Health Equity Member Interest Group to be connected with Health Equity champions.
Education with state and national FM Advocacy Resources:
Use your Voice: Write an op-ed and/or Letter to the Editor:
Suggested places of distribution:
Tips for writing an Op-Ed from the Harvard Communication Project
Make sure you have a headshot photo to submit, if needed.
You can also contact Ginnie Flynn, IAFP Vice President of Communications, for help in finalizing your message.
“Americans believe in the reality of ‘race’ as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world. Racism—the need to ascribe bone-deep features to people and then humiliate, reduce, and destroy them—inevitably follows from this inalterable condition. In this way, racism is rendered as the innocent daughter of Mother Nature, and one is left to deplore the Middle Passage or Trail of Tears the way one deplores an earthquake, a tornado, or any other phenomenon that can be cast as beyond the handiwork of men. But race is the child of racism, not the father.” (Ta Nehesi Coates, Between the World and Me)
To understand racism, one must understand how it operates on multiple levels: personal, interpersonal, institutional, structural. Watch this video from RaceForward.
