Over the past few decades in the field of education, we have engaged in expensive, energetic and well-intentioned reform to our systems of schooling. These changes, including accountability, curriculum and instruction, have been aimed at achieving a very ambitious goal, summed up in the titles of our two most recent federal policy initiatives: “No Child Left Behind” and “Every Student Succeeds.” Sadly, the results of these reforms at the local, state and federal levels have been modest. There have been pockets of success in individual schools and ...

I can’t breathe! This has become an all too familiar cry for many African Americans who everyday struggle to breathe in a society suffocated by systemic racism and entrenched inequities. They struggle to live in a society that has intentionally erected barrier after barrier intended to weaken their bodies and hasten their deaths. What we have is the perfect storm for a disaster—a serious health crisis, an inequitable method of health delivery, millions of uninsured and under-insured people, an uneven and politically charged approach to dealing with the pandemic, police brutality, and other ...

Human trafficking is a global pandemic and gross violation of human rights. Healthcare providers are often the first group of professionals to interact with victims of human trafficking with over 88% of victims ...

If there is any silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that we now have the opportunity to address ongoing societal failures that have been thrown into stark relief by this crisis. Perhaps chief among them is our complacency toward deeply entrenched racial and socioeconomic health disparities, which have become even more deadly in the face of COVID-19. There is ample evidence in states across the country, including Michigan, Louisiana, and North Carolina, that disproportionately high rates of chronic diseases like hypertension, asthma, and diabetes among people of ...

Part of this developing crisis is very well known: On December 31, 2019, Chinese officials reported a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan and identified the novel coronavirus as the causative agent on January 7, 2020. This novel coronavirus spread rapidly, and on March 11, 2020, the

As the COVID pandemic devastates the United States, comorbidity has been identified as one of the key factors that increases risk for serious complications. Chronic disease burden in the US, including hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, chronic lung disease, and arthritis, is 28%, compared to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average of 17.5%. Furthermore,

Although the term health equity is widely used, a common understanding of this term is lacking. Viewing health equity through the lenses of allostatic load and intersectionality could help. This blog post considers three case scenarios, all of which are composites of actual cases that have occurred within the United States, to explore ideas of health equity related to intersectionality and the concept of allostatic load. Case 1 A young, black woman was admitted to Labor & Delivery and progressing well in her own labor. Shortly after ...

The Primary Care Improvement Network (PCIN) is a membership-based network focused on supporting practice transformation, quality improvement, leadership skills, and the dissemination and spread of best practices. The program brings together important primary care stakeholders to address ongoing health care challenges. The goal of the program is to develop high-performing interdisciplinary teams to engage the PCIN themes of 2019-2020, which include effective implementation of telemedicine and effectively address health-related social needs. In the Primary Care sphere, there ...