Diversity and Inclusion Blogs

While tributes and celebrations are important, for those of us in health care, this month is an opportunity to pause and reflect on this diverse community’s health needs – during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

What does it take to become an everyday champion for advancing health equity? How do hospitals and health systems successfully transition from planning to taking action and creating real cultural change? 

April is National Minority Health Month. With COVID-19 having a disproportionate impact in communities of color, emphasis on improving access to vaccines as they become more widely available and eliminating health care inequities is critical.

AHA launches the first in a new series of toolkits designed to help hospitals and health systems make progress in advancing their health equity agenda.

For March 2021, some communities are launching the Transgender Month of Action for Healthcare Equality. The month, specifically focused on the health care needs of transgender and gender non-conforming people, aims to address barriers and areas for growth and highlight victories.

Nearly 55 years ago, during the 1966 Medical Committee of Human Rights Convention, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” Although there has been incremental progress toward achieving a more just health care system, Dr. King’s words still ring true today.

Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Since it became a federal holiday in 1983, MLK Day has become widely celebrated as a day of public service for individuals, communities and organizations.

In this conversation, Elisa Arespacochaga, Interim Executive Lead, Institute for Diversity & Health Equity and Vice President, AHA Physician Alliance, talks with Andrea Custis, President and CE

In this conversation, Darren Henson, Director of Operations with the AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity, speaks with Laura Vail, Director, Health Equity at Cone Health and Dr. Alvin Powell, Chief Health Equity Officer at Cone Health.

A list of podcasts from the AHA on health equity, diversity, and inclusions.

The fifth in the series featured Dr. Estes talking with Dr. Kimberlydawn Wisdom, Senior Vice President of Community Health & Equity and Chief Wellness & Diversity Officer at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit and Michigan's First Surgeon General about health equity.

In this Advancing Health podcast about Cone Health and how it has pioneered educational sessions for its physicians about social and racial influences in health care, Darren Henson, Director of Operations with the AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity, speaks with three members of Cone Health’s leadership team: Laura Vail, Director of Health Equity, Dr. Alvin Powell, Chief Health Equity Officer and Paul Jeffrey, President of Cone Health’s Wesley Long Hospital. Cone Health, winner of the AHA’s 2020 Equity of Care Award, has been recognized for its innovative process and creative steps that hospitals and health systems can incorporate to achieve similar success in advancing health equity.

Right before the COVID-19 outbreak occurred, AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity (IFDHE) convened more than 65 leaders, trustees and clinicians from rural hospitals across the country at AHA’s annual Rural Conference. We inquired about strategies for health equity in rural communities, as well as these communities’ most common areas of disparity or need.

In this continued discussion, Elisa Arespacochaga, vice president of the AHA’s Physician Alliance and interim executive lead for the AHA’s Institute for Diversity an Health Equity, talks with Juana Slade and Anton Gunn about their efforts to learn more about the patients they are serving through REAL data collection, stratification and utilization.

July is National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month. In this conversation, Lisa Hinton, Senior Health Equity and Value specialist with the AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity, speaks with a faith-based organization leader and two health care experts on ways they are broadening their health system’s approaches to improving community access to mental and behavioral health services in the Greater Bronzeville neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.

In this conversation, Elisa Arespacochaga, vice president of the AHA’s Physician Alliance and interim executive lead for the AHA’s Institute for Diversity an Health Equity, talks with two health system chief diversity officers about their efforts to learn more about the patients they are serving through REAL data collection, stratification and utilization.

Listen in as Maria Hernandez, Ph.D., president and chief operating officer of Impact4Health, and Karma Bass, senior principal at Via Healthcare Consulting, discuss the health equity challenges that board members can expect to encounter and how best to tackle them.

In this podcast, Darren Henson, AHA’s director at the Institute for Diversity & Health Equity, explores how despite the COVID-19 outbreak, Loyola University Medical Center – serving the Chicago

As March ushers in Women's History Month, our new Advancing Health podcast "Black History & Women's History Months: A Conversation with our Board Chair" features an interview with Kimberlydawn Wisdom, M.D., a remarkable leader who was recently recognized on Modern Healthcare Magazine's list of Top 25 Minority Leaders. Listen as she shares insights and stories about the influential people throughout her life who've guided her path to success in this new podcast conversation with Darren Henson, Ph. D., IFDHE director of operations.

In this AHA Stat Blog, Jay Bhatt, D.O., AHA senior vice president and chief medical officer, discusses a new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant awarded to AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity.