About This Guide

Assessing Healthcare Equity

Photo by Karolina Grabowska, courtesy of Pexels

The last several years have shined a light on healthcare disparities in our community, most recently due to the pandemic. Since it has been quite relentless for many, some have experienced a lack of health equity more than others. With this, a push to improve health equity across healthcare is expanding throughout the country. “Health equity is the state in which everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health. Achieving this requires focused and ongoing societal efforts to address historical and contemporary injustices; overcome economic, social, and other obstacles to health and healthcare; and eliminate preventable health disparities,” states the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This includes the need for expanding and removing social and economic obstacles that lead to inadequate health outcomes. Some barriers include unsafe or unhealthy environments, poor quality of housing, poverty, lack of access to jobs with health insurance, which can lead to a denial of needed healthcare for individuals. It has also been found that there is a lack of health equity for those with disabilities and for those who reside in rural communities. In Georgia, the Healthcare Georgia Foundation recognizes that

many social and cultural factors can impact a family or individual’s health and well-being. Some of the indicators that the foundation focuses on are literacy, food security, employment, housing, education and poverty. As the Healthcare Georgia website states, “Arlene Parker Goldson and Nathaniel Smith of the Partnership for Southern Equity (PSE) are assisting our Two Georgia’s Initiative Community Health Coalitions with understanding the pivotal role health equity plays in access to quality healthcare as they implement their local Community Health Improvement Plans.” Besides working to provide quality healthcare, the foundation works to provide healthcare for all. “As one of Georgia’s largest health foundations, we believe partnerships with nonprofit health organizations are key to high quality, accessible healthcare and achieving health equity for all Georgians.” The foundation continues by stating that they provide grant funding and program support to health nonprofits and community partners. Organizations right over the border of Georgia have been working relentlessly to transform public health research and implementation to promote health equity efforts. In Jacksonville, Florida, the Voices Institute, launched by Selena Webster-Bass, MPH, is a consulting and research group focused on advancing and promoting health equity efforts that address physical, mental and emotional needs in families, communities, organizations and systems. Voices Institute has training and consulting services including health equity professional learning, equity organizational assessments, equity plans, cultural humility, young development, organizational assessments and more. Some of the health education and promotion services include mental health literacy, racial literacy, health literacy, grief and loss support and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy education. Health studies are also available with qualitative research, focus group facilitation and multicultural community engagement. Working together can help prioritize the concern that continues to build with health equity. In an article, Health Affairs and Project Hope, who work to improve health equity, pointed out that a need to better understand health equity through measurement could help assess the effectiveness of the efforts to improve equity. “There is no national standard method for capturing data on key variables needed to assess health equity. Some organizations, such as the Office of Management and Budget, the Health Resources and Services Administration and the National Committee for Quality Assurance, have developed guidelines for collection of race and ethnicity data, but they are not always consistent,” stated Health Affairs and Project Hope. “There is even less consensus on what categories to use to capture data on other variables, such as language, sexual orientation, gender and disability status. There are also no standard measures for assessing performance in improving health equity. The latter is essential to creating accountability and transparency for health equity.” As we learn more about health equity, we will be able to properly work with those that would benefit from improved health equity. It is apparent that time is needed to work through health equity issues. There are some other resources in the area that may lead to some data that could help communities throughout the state. “The Unite Us Social Needs System (SNS) classifies risks to help identify, measure and quantify the social barriers in which people live. Data has been combined across more than 100 sources to develop a comprehensive understanding of the social and economic needs in our communities and most importantly, how we address them through programs, funding and coordination,” states Unite Us in a recent article. “Unite Georgia is a statewide coordinated care network of health and social service providers. Partners in the network are connected through a shared technology platform, which enables them to send and receive electronic referrals, address people’s social needs and the root causes of poor health outcomes and improve health across communities.” With this in mind, it is important to move forward with a positive outlook to expand the resources available for those facing health inequity. Georgia can work towards a better outcome for healthcare prosperity in our community as partnerships across government, healthcare and social services are built.

Photo courtesy of Stock Images