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.

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

Offers vivid narratives illuminating the challenges and opportunities health professionals and policymakers face Distinguished by abundant patient and health provider narratives highlighting the impact of health disparities on health outcomes worldwide, this scholarly yet practical text prepares RN-BSN, DNP, and PhD students to work toward improving community health for a variety of underserved and vulnerable populations. Grounded in the population health approach addressed in AACN Essentials, the text delivers practical steps nurses can take to address population health goals, including the improvement of quality of care, access to healthcare, improved outcomes, and cost management. The resource is also unique in its reflection of the interconnected points of view of the patient, the provider, and the health system. Written by lawyers, physicians, social workers, statisticians and economists, psychologists, ethicists, finance experts, population health specialists, anthropologists, and nurses, the text emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach to learning and all components of health care—delivery of care, policy, research, and teaching. It examines demographic differences, chronic and acute health conditions, and the health needs of the unserved/underserved across the life cycle. The book emphasizes the importance of understanding the social determinants of health and discusses ways to address health disparities through changes in public policy, attitudes, beliefs, education, research, and advocacy. Objectives, key terms, discussion questions, and exercises facilitate group discussion about best practices. Key Features: Delivers practical knowledge with detailed narratives and case studies of specific populations from experienced interprofessional authors Highlights the interwoven perspectives of patients, health providers, and health systems to promote cultural competence Pinpoints health disparities including a discussion of COVID-19 Presents selected historical landmarks and cases that influence population health outcomes among vulnerable groups Interdisciplinary approach includes the perspectives of other health and social science disciplines

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.

"The authors tell the story of the Association of Minority Health Professions Schools and the hard-won influence that it built in American politics and health care. This story speaks to the history of Black people's exclusion from medical fields and to racial inequities in health"--

Social factors, signals, and biases shape the health of our nation. Racism and poverty manifest in unequal social, environmental, and economic conditions, resulting in deep-rooted health disparities that carry over from generation to generation. In Perspectives on Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health, authors call for collective action across sectors to reverse the debilitating and often lethal consequences of health inequity. This edited volume of discussion papers provides recommendations to advance the agenda to promote health equity for all. Organized by research approaches and policy implications, systems that perpetuate or ameliorate health disparities, and specific examples of ways in which health disparities manifest in communities of color, this Special Publication provides a stark look at how health and well-being are nurtured, protected, and preserved where people live, learn, work, and play. All of our nation's institutions have important roles to play even if they do not think of their purpose as fundamentally linked to health and well-being. The rich discussions found throughout Perspectives on Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health make way for the translation of policies and actions to improve health and health equity for all citizens of our society. The major health problems of our time cannot be solved by health care alone. They cannot be solved by public health alone. Collective action is needed, and it is needed now.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught the world many things, but one of the most crucial is the need to communicate tailored health information through trusted messengers effectively. The Birth of Grapevine Health chronicles the experiences of one physician, Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick, a CDC-trained medical epidemiologist on a mission to deliver trusted health information to the Black community through Grapevine Health, a community and health outreach organization she started with the aim to improve patient engagement and health literacy in underserved communities through the digital delivery of tailored health messages. Fitzpatrick reveals why she began building an organization that, in 2020, appeared tailored for the COVID-19 pandemic long before that crisis unfolded across the globe. Frustrated by the lack of progress in addressing health inequity, Dr. Lisa moved into an under-resourced community to become proximal enough to better understand health inequity and the structural and policy changes needed to address it. She weaves her professional experiences with storytelling and lessons learned into a call to action for healthcare leaders, decisionmakers, and funders to move beyond data collection and shift toward action to focus on health prevention, move our health support further upstream and, ultimately, improve health outcomes for underserved communities. The Birth of Grapevine Health is part memoir, part health equity playbook, and offers a roadmap to actions needed to achieve health equity. At a time when health equity conversations seem ubiquitous, what sets The Birth of Grapevine Health apart is its embrace and integration of community voice. This book delivers deep insights and, at times, uncomfortable advice through the eyes of Black and brown patients and their communities about what it will take to achieve health equity.