Mending racial inequities in health care starts with ‘being a good human being’
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Key takeaways:
- A speaker discusses that racial inequities in health care are first and foremost a moral condition.
- This moral condition is driven by societal narratives which obscure the true reasons for inequity.
SAN DIEGO — Racial inequities in society and health care is a moral issue before it is a scientific one, according to a speaker at the Skin of Color Society Scientific Symposium.
“We are not fighting against science, because the evidence is there that inequities exist,” Aletha Maybank, MD, MPH, senior vice president and chief health equity officer of the American Medical Association, said in the opening of her standing ovation-received keynote address at the 20th Annual Skin of Color Society Scientific Symposium. “It’s the narratives that we are trying to challenge.”
According to Maybank, racial inequities in society and health care are mainly due not to a lack of data, but to a moral condition. In her address, Maybank explained that there are dominant narratives embedded in our society that obscure who is responsible for creating racial inequities and ultimately cause disparities.
Examples of these narratives include the idea that racial and class inequities are unfortunate but not unjust, self-determining individuals make right or wrong lifestyle choices rendering structural determinants of health inequities invisible, or the ideology of meritocracy.
To combat these narratives, Maybank listed several moral items that must be addressed beginning with the necessary charge to value each other equally.
“I’m coming to a point now in my career where to me the work of equity is about being a good human being,” she said. “If we really valued each other, we wouldn’t be in this environment.”
Acknowledging that history matters is another vital step toward bridging inequities, according to Maybank, followed by having humility about the things that one does not know, seeing the humanity in every person encountered, being in close proximity to those from different cultures and redistributing resources to those who have been historically marginalized and excluded. Lastly, Maybank stressed that this work cannot be done alone.
“We need more accomplices,” Maybank said. “I do not think the work of solving inequities can fall on the shoulders of Black and Brown people. We are not going to solve it alone.”
Despite adversity, Maybank encouraged her diversity, equity and inclusion colleagues, in a “love letter” that she penned and read during her address, to keep reaching for freedom, justice, liberation and joy.
“We deserve to be and always should be loved and valued for who we are,” she concluded. “Not just as doctors — just who you are as a human being.”