Opportunities for psychologists to advance health equity: Using liberation psychology to identify key lessons from 17 years of praxis.

Abstract

Health and health care inequities persist because the efforts to eliminate them have ignored structural racism, typically using a power neutral approach to diagnose and solve the problem.

How psychologists can help achieve equity in health care—advancing innovative partnerships and models of care delivery: Introduction to the special issue.

“…Cook et al (2023) explore lessons learned from a transdisciplinary national health and health care equity program based on multiple years of practice experience using Martín-Baró’s (1994) liberation psychology model. Recommendations are suggested to address health and health care inequities and facilitate effective interventions.…”

Advancing health equity through partnerships of state Medicaid agencies, Medicaid managed care organizations, and health care delivery organizations

“…The AHE National Program Office, comprised of individuals from the University of Chicago, Center for Health Care Strategies, and Institute for Medicaid Innovation, provided a didactic curriculum and technical assistance to support teams in implementing health equity initiatives, based on its Roadmap to Advance Health Equity. The Roadmap was developed and updated based upon the team's experience working with grantees implementing equity interventions since 2005 (19,21), conducting 12 systematic reviews of the health equity intervention literature (19,22), providing technical assistance to organizations attempting to advance health equity (12), and the University of Chicago's local experience trying to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (5,18). The Roadmap has been cited in the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine's System Practices for the Care of Socially At-Risk Populations, and The CMS Equity Plan for Improving Quality in Medicare (23).…”

“…Building a culture of equity within and across the three stakeholder groups was an overarching and ongoing component of the Roadmap to Advance Health Equity. At the opening conference of AHE in October 2019, teams were provided didactic material on how to build a culture of equity within their organization (intra-organizational culture) and across organizations (inter-organizational culture), which was reinforced with subsequent webinars and individualized technical assistance calls over the next 18 months (5,18). For example, teams received a "Creating a Culture of Equity" strategy overview resource which includes a planning worksheet with categories such as activities, people to engage, sustainability, and a timeline, and a list of external resources.…”

“…However, widespread scale, spread, and sustainability of health equity interventions requires buy-in and action from all levels of health care organizations, alongside financial incentives and support to enable a viable business model (3,4). In addition, systemic social drivers of health such as poverty, structural racism and other systems of oppression must be addressed (5).…”

“…Health care organizations and policymakers are becoming more aware of the need to address structural racism and the social drivers of health that have led to health inequities. Health care organizations must integrate equity and anti-racism into their internal cultures and design interventions that address racism at institutional, organizational, and interpersonal levels (5,9). Anti-racism in health care requires shifting power; systemic structural factors driving health inequities must be addressed so that racially minoritized and other marginalized populations can achieve equitable access to care and health outcomes (10).…”