Living Room Recap: What is Health Equity and Why Does it Matter?

Heath equity is a popular topic these days, but the concept is more than just a trendy phrase. In general, the health care system in the United States distributes services inefficiently and unevenly across populations which causes some Americans to receive worse care than others. These are called “inequities.”  Inequities in health care can gravely affect Americans from many different ethnic, racial, cultural and socio-economic groups. These inequities also directly impact lung cancer risk, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship. At GO2, we are committed to improving outcomes for everyone at risk for or diagnosed with lung cancer, regardless of race, sex, gender, or class, and we believe that this topic is an important one for everyone in our community.

In November’s Lung Cancer Living Room conversation with GO2’s own Shanada Monestime, we discussed the factors that lead to health disparities in the United States; the impact of health inequities on lung cancer care; historic and systemic barriers to receiving good care and what we can do to meaningfully address these barriers.

Speaker: Shanada Monestime, PharmD, BCOP, Director, Community Engaged Research, GO2 for Lung Cancer

Mentioned in this episode:

• In the United States, health equity and equal opportunity are inextricably linked. The burdens of disease, poor health and the benefits of wellness and good health are inequitably distributed among groups of people.
• Lack of equitable access to high-quality health care is in large part a result of structural racism in US health care policy, which is structured to provide advantages to the White population and disadvantage racial and ethnic minority populations.
• Of eleven high-income countries, the United States ranks last overall – despite spending the most on health care in important performance measures like access to care, equity and health care outcomes.
• Findings from health services research highlight continuing health care disparities in the United States, especially in the areas of access to health care and quality of care, in part due to implicit bias of clinicians against Black, Hispanic and other people of color.
• Some structural interventions exist which have shown to reduce and eliminate health disparities.
• GO2 for Lung Cancer’s Centers of Excellence (COE) program is broadening our COE designations to include health equity and community engagement.
• GO2 provides patient education materials in Spanish and episodes of the Living Room in both Spanish and Chinese to better support native speakers.

Please also join us for next month’s Lung Cancer Living Room on December 20th at 5:30 pm PT for part two of our discussion on health equity as we look at community perspectives and experiences with Dr. Ibiayi Dagogo-Jack, MD from Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Henry J. Henderson III, PhD from Foundation Medicine, and Dr. Monica L. Baskin, PhD from Hilllman Cancer Center.

For more information on these and other GO2 for Lung Cancer programs or for support through your diagnosis and treatment, please contact the HelpLine at 1-800-298-2436 or email support@go2.org.