U.S. Navy patient safety training. Photo by Macy Hinds | Public domain photo
A growing body of research shows a link between gender, race and ethnicity and unsafe patient care, but some experts say more comprehensive patient data are needed to better understand why certain groups are more likely to be harmed by medical error.
Image courtesy of The Commonwealth Fund
If policymakers don’t work to mitigate the detrimental effects of laws that limit American women’s health services, they will exacerbate already poor outcomes resulting from persistent inequities in social determinants of health that are driving demographic disparities. That’s one of the takeaways from a recent report by The Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research institution that focuses on health care policy and practice research.
These maps from the CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index show the range of vulnerability in Fulton County, Ga., using four metrics. Public domain image
Federal, state and local officials use risk assessment tools called “social vulnerability indices” to identify places that may be hit harder by natural disasters and public health emergencies. These indices help officials decide where to send water, food, medical personnel and supplies during those situations and their aftermath. Some indices are being applied to track disease disparities and identify unmet social needs that make some Americans more vulnerable to illnesses.
Journalists can use these resources to bring equity-related context to stories about public health and how vaccination initiatives, pollution enforcement, food insecurity and economic tax break patterns, among other factors, can influence it.
Photo via Canva
Dallas is among cities, counties and other local governments that have recently adopted race equity plans. In the 2022-2023 goals and metrics report, city officials have said they want to track their goals, which include tracking air quality in certain areas and upgrading water and sewer lines in neighborhoods that haven’t seen investment for decades. There’s a line in there about improving the health of the city’s Black and Hispanic residents, who represent more than 60% of the population of the country’s ninth-largest city and are more likely than their white peers to have preventable chronic diseases.
Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
HIV trends don’t make headlines the way they used to. But we may see an influx of them in the coming months after news that a court ruling may allow insurance companies to cut back on coverage of preventive care.
