JANUARY 22, 2019
Injustice. Health. Hope. Thoughts on #MLKDay
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood injustice was not just under the law. He knew too well the injustices inflicted by the inequities and disparities faced by those without shelter, nutrition, education, employment, and lasting health and well-being.
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death.”
—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in a speech to the Medical Committee for Human Rights, 1966
Nick Kristof’s recent look at infant mortality rates in the US and Cuba reminds us that health access and health equity - more than just health coverage - are driving US health outcomes downward. For his story, Kristof spoke with Gail Reid, Executive Editor for the MEDICC Review, a scientific journal that publishes research by Cuban and other scholars from the Global South whose work addresses health equity.
Whether it’s opioids, mental health, or adverse childhood events (ACEs), our large systems are no longer able to pivot to address the individual needs of children, families, and communities ravaged by poverty and discrimination.
California’s new Governor, Gavin Newsom, is one of several Western state governors thinking big when it comes to redesigning these large systems that deliver health and human services to diverse populations.
It’s clear his goals go beyond just bending the cost curve. He wants systems to work together to create a healthy California for all. He’s focused on reducing poverty and changing the life trajectory for the next generation of California’s children. That’s ambitious. That’s fighting injustice.
A former Governor of Texas (for one day), the Honorable Barbara Jordan, saw it this way,
“What the people want is very simple - they want an America as good as its promise.”
—Barbara Jordan
Hickman Strategies had the opportunity to work with Gail Reed and the MEDICC team in 2018. For us, one of the most striking learnings was Cuba’s approach to reducing maternal and infant mortality and health disparities. In the US, African-American women experience the highest infant mortality rates among any racial or ethnic group. The African-American infant mortality rate has been roughly twice that of the white infant mortality rates for over 35 years. According to the C.D.C, African-American women are three to four times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes as white women.