“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and inhumane.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Dear Closing the Health Gap Community:
As we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday's holiday, we reflect on his enduring legacy of justice, equality, and service. Dr. King’s vision inspires the work we do at the Center for Closing the Health Gap—fighting to improve the outcomes of diseases that disproportionately affect the marginalized populations we serve across the Greater Cincinnati area. His call to action reminds us that health equity is not just a goal but an ethical obligation. Together, we must continue building a community where everyone has the opportunity to live a healthy, thriving life. Today, let us renew our commitment to justice and unity in Dr. King’s honor.
Have a safe and blessed MLK Day and a rewarding week ahead!
Renee Mahaffey Harris
President & CEO
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MDHHS recognizes Social Determinants of Health Month in January
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) is bringing partners together from across the state in recognition of Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) Month this January.
Throughout the month, MDHHS is encouraging community and advocates in health and social equity to use the hashtag #MISDOHMonth2025 when they host events, webinars or awareness activities to promote health equity and SDOH work across Michigan to show support.
Click here for the full story.
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Defining Discrimination in Health Care
Scholars are now debating how the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo will impact health care regulation. Courts must now independently “determine the best reading” of statutes rather than deferring to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes.
Recently, the debate has focused on a rule interpreting a section of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) designed to limit discriminatory practices in the provision of health care. Section 1557 of the ACA prohibits entities that receive federal funding, such as health care providers or insurance companies, from discriminating against patients based on their “race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability” when the entities engage in certain activities, such as providing medical care or insurance coverage.
Click here for the full story.
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Bridging the Digital Divide in Health Care: A New Framework for Equity
A new study published in December in JAMIA Open and led by Department of Health Policy researchers including Elham Hatef, MD, MPH, and Jonathan P. Weiner, DrPH, aims to address inequities in digital technology access by guiding the intentional integration of equity throughout the lifecycle of digital health care solutions. The Digital Health Care Equity Framework (DHEF), developed through a collaborative process involving a diverse panel of experts and supported by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, marks a pivotal step toward ensuring that digital health tools benefit all communities equitably.
Click here for the full story.
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How improving education could close maternal heart health gaps
A new Northwestern study in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes that analyzed health disparities has discovered a powerful insight: Achieving equity in various social drivers of health — but particularly education — could nearly eliminate these gaps. Additional education, along with factors such as income and access to healthcare, could reduce the heart health gap between Black and white women by 82% and erase it entirely between Hispanic and white women. In other words, social and environmental factors — not biological differences at birth — drive steep disparities in cardiovascular health during pregnancy.
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American Heart Association aims to close the gap in health inequities with HBCU scholars program
The American Heart Association's program has the goal of increasing the number of Black students who apply and are accepted into medical schools. One of its newest participants, Jada Hall from Gulfport, is a junior chemistry major at Tougaloo College in Jackson. She is studying to become a pharmacist
“What makes me interested in pharmacy, in medicine, in all of those things is I've just always been kind of keen on the sciences and very much with chemistry and how different metabolic ways in the body just interact with each other,” Hall said. “Medicine in pharmacology is just very interesting, seeing how they interact, but not only just the science behind it, the impact. Being able to go out into communities as a potential pharmacist and serve those who have different health problems or issues and just seeing them improve overall.”
Click here for the full story.
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Disparities in cardiac arrest mortality among patients with chronic kidney disease: A US-based epidemiological analysis
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) increases the risk of cardiac arrest (CA) because of the interplay between renal dysfunction and cardiovascular complications. As CKD progresses, the incidence of CA rises, contributing to 60% of cardiac deaths among patients undergoing dialysis.The pathophysiology underlying this elevated risk is multifactorial, involving electrolyte imbalances, sympathetic overactivity, inflammation, and iron deposition, all of which can predispose to arrhythmias and conduction abnormalities.
Click here for the full story.
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Equity in End-of-Life Care: Unraveling Disparities Among Nursing Home Residents with Alzheimer’s Disease or Related Dementia
Alzheimer’s disease or related dementia (ADRD) can be debilitating conditions. Palliative care, which aims to improve the quality of life for patients, is often crucial for individuals with ADRD. Yet, like in so many other areas of healthcare, the data suggests significant disparities in access to such care on the basis of race: according to the 2019 Report Card on Access to Palliative Care, about 50% of whites with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementia (ADRD) used palliative care before they died, while only 34% of African Americans and 37% of Hispanics did the same.
Click here for the full story.
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Health Equity Symposium speakers stress partnerships in addressing disparities
When Martin Luther King Jr. alluded to disparities in income, housing and education during a speech at Stanford University in 1967, he was referring to what physicians today would recognize as social determinants of health, said Joyce Sackey, MD, chief equity, diversity and inclusion officer at Stanford Medicine.
Social determinants of health are “the conditions of the places where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship and age that we now fully understand profoundly affect health and well-being,” she explained in introductory remarks at the Jan. 14 Health Equity Symposium. Hundreds of people attended the event, which was co-sponsored by Stanford Medicine and Stanford’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute and was held at Arrillaga Alumni Center on the Stanford University campus.
Click here for the full story.
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Ethnic Disparities Identified in Colorectal Cancer Diagnoses, Study Finds
Significant disparities in colorectal cancer (CRC) diagnosis exist among ethnic groups, according to a study analyzing data from the English National Health Service (NHS).1 The findings reveal stark differences, with early-onset CRC being most prevalent among mixed and multiple ethnic groups and least common in White individuals. This large, population-based study is published in BMJ Open Gastroenterology.
"If ethnic inequalities are identified then it is vital to describe them in detail in order to tackle them and optimize diagnostic pathways, especially in non-White populations," wrote the researchers of the study.
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Designing Care for the Underserved Creates Higher-Value Health Solutions
In the second half of AJMC's interview with Brita Roy, MD, MPH, MHS, associate professor in the Department of Population Health and the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, she discusses effective engagement of minoritized populations in discussion of medical mistrust and health policy under the incoming second Trump administration.
For the first half of the interview with Roy, who is also director of community health and clinical outcomes for Beyond Bridges, a population health initiative in the Southwest part of Brooklyn, New York, please visit Addressing Health Disparities by Zip Code: Key Factors Explored.
Click here for the full report.
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