Health Equity

By Enrique Cardiel
Facilitator, International District Healthy Communities Coalition (IDHCC)

Health equity is often defined by what it is not. Health inequities are those differences in health outcomes that can be prevented by policies and actions and are therefore unfair. Given that health begins where we live, work, play, and love it is easy to see the fairness issues.

Ask yourself, “Are there parts of town that are unfairly neglected and underserved?” “Are there people unfairly blocked from access to resources?” And most importantly, “Why in a society where we are legally bound to fairness and equality of opportunities, do we see consistently unequal outcomes?”

While there is some subjectivity to answering these questions there is also a common sense. We know there are neglected parts of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County, and they tend to be where poor people, Chicanos, Native Americans, African Americans, and immigrants live. We know there are barriers to people accessing resources such as education, clean air, and jobs based on where they live, what they look like, and their language.

We have recently spent a year discussing reform to the medical services insurance system of our country. We are far from a solution. It is time that we made it so that any one of us can see a doctor when they need to. And it is also time that we made it less necessary to do so. Not everyone has the same opportunities to make choices that ensure them a long and healthy life. It is time we that opportunity something we all have!

For an academic reading on Health Equity read
http://depts.washington.edu/eqhlth/pages/BezruchkaUSHealthInequality10Cor.pdf