February is Black History Month – a time “to celebrate the immeasurable contributions of Black Americans, honor the legacies and achievements of generations past, reckon with centuries of injustice, and confront those injustices that still fester today.”
This year’s Black History Month theme is: Black Health and Wellness. As an organization who works to increase health care access, understanding, and equity – we take this time to highlight the health care-related inequities that disproportionally affect the Black community, to this day.
These inequities manifest at many different levels, and are best explained by The Century Foundation. Black Americans are faced with “gaps in health insurance coverage, uneven access to services, and poorer health outcomes among certain populations.” Factors like systemic racism, conscious and unconscious bias, and underrepresentation in the medical field are just a few contributors to these inequities.
Clearly, the American health care system is not immune to racial injustice – meaning there is still so much work that needs to be done in regard to reforming these structures. An article published by St. Catherine University noted that “only with dedicated, collective, [and] coordinated effort can we start to” implement real change. We can do this by calling out discrimination where it occurs, reflecting on our own biases, and creating standardized levels of care. None of this can be done overnight, but we must start somewhere, and we must start now.
With that being said, the JaxCareConnect team works tirelessly to make health care more accessible to ALL of our Duval County neighbors. If you or anyone you know need access to health care, JaxCareConnect can help. Click the link below for more info: https://jaxcareconnect.org.
References:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2022/01/31/a-proclamation-on-national-black-history-month-2022/
https://tcf.org/content/report/racism-inequality-health-care-african-americans/?agreed=1
https://www.stkate.edu/academics/healthcare-degrees/racism-in-healthcare
