Health Policy

Health policy is best understood as a set of overarching principles and goals that dictate how care is delivered and accessed. Health care policy can be codified at a national or state level, and then more finely honed in a hospital or clinical environment.

In order to address the health inequities in this country, we need to address the health and economic policies that produce disparities in healthcare access and outcomes.

Join us as we learn about the current medical and public health system, structural and interpersonal racism in medicine, and the policies that have paved the way for health inequities.

We are cultivating the consciousness of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color to play a role in health policy work! If you are interested in joining us, please email info@bmhanashville.com.

HEALTH DISPARITIES

DIFFERENCES IN HEALTH STATUS AMONG DISTINCT SEGMENTS OF THE POPULATION INCLUDING DIFFERENCES THAT OCCUR BY GENDER, RACE OR ETHNICITY, EDUCATION OR INCOME, DISABILITY, OR LIVING IN VARIOUS GEOGRAPHIC LOCALITIES

HEALTH INEQUITIES

DISPARITIES IN HEALTH THAT ARE A RESULT OF SYSTEMIC, AVOIDABLE, AND UNJUST SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC POLICIES AND PRACTICES THAT CREATE BARRIERS TO OPPORTUNITY

What We Do

Education

Educating our people on the policies that impact our health and well-being.

Collaboration

Bridging the silos of stakeholders in community-based organizations, government, and private businesses while elevating the voices and empowering communities that are directly impacted.

Elevate and Empower

Cultivating the consciousness of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color to play a role in health policy work! We're not the voice of the community, we're just the mic.

Harm Reduction

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Race

A specious classification of human beings created by White Europeans that assigns human worth and social status using “White” as the model of humanity and the height of human achievement for the purpose of establishing and maintaining privilege and power.

Power

Having legitimate access to systems sanctioned by the authority of the state.

Racism

Race prejudice plus power.

The roots of racism in health and health care reach back as far as racism itself, to the founding of our medical and political systems. The cumulative effects of this history impact individuals, communities, and institutions today. Racism in medicine is a program designed to contextualize the racial health disparities that exist in the United States. We refute the white supremacist views that health disparities are passive outcomes that result from biological differences between different 'racial' groups. Instead, we acknowledge structural racism and racism in medicine as the violent forces producing health disparities in the United States.