Wanting to provide added resources and leadership to addressing health inequities, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) recently created a Health Equity Bureau, hiring Brooke Cunningham, a general internist, sociologist and former assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, to lead the effort.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Tom Olmscheid[/image_credit][image_caption]Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm[/image_caption]
“And then along comes the pandemic, which has both made some of the inequities more visible and also worsened them in many respects at the same time.”
Health inequities, seen in everything from infant and maternal mortality to the disproportionate impacts of substance abuse, cut across different populations and communities. Because of the widespread impact, it required MDH to take a more individualized approach to each issue and community, Malcolm said.
While MDH has previously had initiatives around eliminating health inequities, the bureau is part of MDH’s effort to put more resources toward addressing the issue. Cunningham’s role will allow MDH to take a better look at the many conditions in people’s environments that affect their health and to create concrete plans to address them.
Malcolm thought Cunningham would be perfect for the role because of her unique perspective as a sociologist and a doctor. “When it comes to health equity, differential access to medical care is a part of the issue, but it’s only a part of the issue,” said Malcolm. “The deeper issue is inequitable distribution of opportunity around the social determinants of health, which is way more of a sociology thing than a clinical thing.”
[image_caption]Brooke Cunningham[/image_caption]
She has been a health disparities researcher and a general internist primary care provider. Most recently, she was a full-time faculty in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.
“I am someone who has a longstanding interest in addressing racial inequities. I decided to focus on closing gaps through health equity research and through primary care,” Cunningham said.
Having grown up in Richmond, Va., Cunningham observed systematic patterns of racial disparities, patterns that still exist in Minnesota, she said.
“Many parts of the city are still highly segregated,” she said. “With the dynamics of redlining and segregation are the dynamics of resources. Resources are the things that create healthy neighborhoods. Resources are the things that lead to food security versus food insecurity. Resources and funding structures affect the quality of our education. All of those upstream determinants are similar and are patterns across the country. The pattern of resource distribution is not arbitrary; it’s racialized, given the history of racial relations and policies in our country.”
As an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, Cunningham has tried to teach future doctors to think about adapting health care delivery to consider inequities that lead to the patients sitting before them. The bureau will give her a larger platform to do so.
“The purpose of the bureau is really to help amplify and coordinate efforts around health equity,” she said. “It is not new work to the bureau, but it’s a greater emphasis, particularly to have someone in leadership who can keep coming back to the equity issues and to be at the table when important conversations go on.”
So far, she has been working with COVID data and equity strategies, looking at gaps by race and ethnicity in terms of getting people up to date with their vaccinations.
Addressing circumstances like environmental pollution or poor access to transportation that often lead to health inequities is on the top of her to-do list. While she knows about the issues many communities face, like chronic disease outcomes and gun violence, she wants to prioritize meeting with community groups to hear about the problems they’re facing.
“I see many of the ways in which those upstream factors, like neighborhoods that people live in, educational opportunities, employment opportunities, policies … affect (people),” she said. “I think it’s important for leaders to have the courageous conversations, ask the tough questions, develop messaging both internal and external and to listen.”
Could someone show me a policy that discriminates against anyone of any color in getting a COViD vaccine or access to medical treatment . That would be proof of the systemic racism this article is throwing out there.
You posed the same question on voting and were given far reaching evidence on the mechanisms involved and failed to recognize what was clearly in front of you. Why would anyone now waste time educating somebody who clearly wishes to remain ignorant?
Dan, so in other words you cannot find a policy enforced against one person from another, that prevents a person from getting a vaccine or medical treatment. Ok, just say so.
How about this, Joe, rather than go through the exact same steps on every thread where people point out the specifics while you pretend they don’t exist or continually excuse them, why don’t I ask a couple of simple questions. When did systemic racism in the United States end? Since systemic racism doesn’t exist, what causes the different income, health, and incarceration outcomes between blacks and whites in this country?
It would be interesting to see if you have the ability to formulate a basis for your beliefs of if you are simply trolling based on whatever Tucker tells you to believe.
Nobody denies racism in this country. However Dan why don’t you answer how that prevents so many in vulnerable communities from acheiving a passing grade in Math and Reading. Are you saying other sub groups such as Vietnamese immigrants who settled even in the deep south such as Louisiana did not/ do not face racism ?
No, I don’t and don’t know what point you are trying to make by suggesting it. The thing about racism, systemic and otherwise, is that it can vary based on people’s, get this, perceived race.
But you started your statement with the fallacy that nobody believes racism (racial bigotry plus authority) doesn’t exist in this country. It is a foundational belief of conservative ideology: the idea that everyone in the country, regardless of race, has the same starting point and access to resources. The trouble with that “thinking” is that none of them can explain the variation in outcomes.
The point you are trying to make throughout every response is that race is the overwhelming factor. There was no “perceived race” factor when it came to Vietnamese immigrants in the Deep South. They were discriminated against, plenty.
There’s no fallacy in my statement. You simply want to hang to the the belief that every conservative believes theres no racism in this country. That is a pure and absolute falsehood. Also nobody ever stated that everyone starts from the same starting point and access in this country. Thats yet another falsehood you perpetuate.
Either way, even with the presence of racism or lack of the same exact starting point or access in this country, doesn’t answer for the fact that the outcomes are so drastically different. You simply don’t wish to address the reason why. Vietnamese Americans faced racism and different starting points. That didn’t prevent them from educational attainment.
Try answering why.
You seem to want to make my argument for me because you don’t have one of your own. I have no doubt that immigrants of all types have faced substantial racism in every part of this country. I just have no reason to assume that the racism they have faced is the same, and despite your claims, neither do you. I actually believe systemic racism exists and is particularly pernicious for blacks. Any person interested in the mechanisms and history of systemic racism in this country can find thousands of resources to help them understand. You are the one who can’t provide an explanation for the differential outcomes. Since conservatives don’t believe or refuse to act on systemic racism, they must have another explanation for outcomes. One that not a single one of them has the ever been able to describe.
I have pointed to reasons in the response below. What’s shocking is you’re unaware of / or unwilling to confront alternative view points that’ve existed for a while. Claiming that systemic racism is the only factor is the weakest of excuses.
For the past twenty years, public school unions, philanthropies doled out the diversity mantra. After having seen failure after a decade or two of that mantra, now Equity and systemic racism are being put forth. That way , they can wipe their failure slate clean. And blame everyone else for another decade or two.
“Commissioner Jan Malcolm cares” therefore she and most liberal progressive Democrats focus on outcomes and ignores the inputs that creates these outcomes. While it is no longer PC to look at the true dependent variables, i.e. inputs that cause the outcomes, I will postulate that the outcomes on income, wealth, home ownership, crime rate, prison rate, health care access, etc. are far more correlated to education level, field of education, training level and field of training than skin color. Prove me wrong with facts without calling me a racist…
What would you postulate causes differences in education levels?
Dan, could you postulate how spending 15K per child per anum on education has discriminated against any community in achieving basic educational goals, i.e (a passing grade in Reading and Math)
So if I go through the work of describing the facts and history that got us to where we are, I have never seen a conservative acknowledge systemic racism exists in any meaningful way. Not once. I have also never had a conservative be able to explain why the outcomes in incarceration, education, health, and income levels are different. This suggests that conservatives have zero basis for their own beliefs but are completely unable or unwilling to digest any new information provided to them, which might give them some useable knowledge.
So rather than waste time providing information to people who clearly don’t want it I figured I would simply ask why they hold the beliefs they do on the off chance one of them actually knows.
A non answer for my question is exactly the same that you wish to point at conservatives.
These answers have been provided repeatedly on various threads ad nauseam and are described in detail in hundreds of books and academic papers, you simply repeating the question on a new page doesn’t warrant a new response. If you want a quick primer try Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning. Something, however, that no conservative has ever provided in any context, anywhere, is what they believe causes the different outcomes. At best they simply deny that any of it is due to systemic racism and leave it at that. Never having the courage to present their own idea and defend it. At worst, it is just a multi-step process to say that blacks are inferior and it is their own fault
There are two potential reasons for this. They either know, but don’t want to acknowledge, that systemic racism exists (and they broadly support its continuation) or they lack the intellectual capacity or curiosity that demands a rational reason for their beliefs. They are simply happy to repeat what they hear without any actual thought or analysis. Their entire way of interacting relies on forcing others to go through the work of providing facts and structures for what they think while they troll by asking disingenuous questions designed to waste other people’s time and obfuscate from their own abhorrent beliefs.
So, for once, either provide your explanation for the differential in outcomes or accept one of the two previously described reasons for why you can’t.
One doesn’t have to be a conservative, nor a denier, nor a racist to reject the Ibran Kendi view of the world. Kendi and his believers are entitled to believe his theories. IMO, for Mr Kendi and others to claim that any person cannot pass a reading or math all due to racism is an absolute joke. Today America is one of the best places, if not the best, on this planet for a minority to succeed. You can laugh/scoff at that all you wish, but millions of minorities / immigrants have proven that. Kendi and his followers just hang on to endless excuses.
Also, to claim that no other reasons have been put forth is simply false. Starting from Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s book, there is a bunch of alternate literature that you choose to ignore.
There are family issues, cultural capital allocated to education, lousy schools etc. You can choose to ignore all of them. Ignoring them provides one with a convenient excuse to avoid facts that will run counter to the woke uber liberal mantra that its all due to racists and racism.
Your explanations simply push the racism into another bucket. The idea of “family issues” or “cultural capital” is partially responsible is just a politically correct way to say that black families and culture are inherently inferior and they have lousy schools. Which, if you believe it, leads to the question, explain why, if not for fundamental black inferiority, do you believe that to be the case if not systemic racism?
Conservatives have simply changed the overt racist terms they used in the past to ones like “family issues” or “culture capital”. But again, they have never come up with anything other than racism (their own or systemic) to explain the different outcomes. I haven’t ignored alternate literature at all, it simply all ends up at the same exact place where all conservative arguments end up after running in circles describing the various mechanisms by which racism manifests only to deny systemic racism is a meaningful thing. They believe blacks are inherently inferior and think masking that belief in new terms means it is alright to feel that way.
Conservatives have gone from pushing overtly racist policies to denying responsibility for the impact of those policies. All while working hard to maintain the old policies using new terms. (An example is their desire for election integrity that happens to impact black communities more significantly needs to be propped up by the massive election fraud lie.) There are clear reasons why Replacement Theory and the idea of a border invasion are top topics with conservatives and that white supremacists and Christian nationalists are welcome at Trump rallies and within the Republican party. It isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
First you claim those who reject the Kendi narrative have presented no other narrative. Then after another narrative is presented, your response is “How dare they….they’re all racist” !!! Isn’t the truth is you have no interest in any other view point.
In which way are bring up family issues and cultural capital allocated to education racist ? If you’re wholly stuck on the Kendi narrative, thats your perogative. Its a free country and you are entitled to have any opinion you choose. To others it looks like an awfully convenient way to dodge any inconvenient questions. They’re all racist ! A nice way to dodge any accountability.
I believe systemic racism exists and is particularly pernicious for blacks which accounts for the different outcomes. Every one of your arguments circles back to the same thing, that blacks, as a population, have failed. Describing the metrics you believe illustrate those failures such as educational achievement, single-parent households, etc. does nothing to explain the core reason for them. It is a circular argument used by people who want to hide their racism in a cloud of pseudo-intellectualism. To simplify the argument, blacks have lower income because they invest less in education, they invest less in education because they have a failed family structure, they have a failed family structure because they …. rinse and repeat. BTW, referencing the Moynihan Report (written in 1965 by a white guy born in 1927, was part of the Nixon administration and was roundly criticized by civil rights leaders at the time) as a basis for your thinking is quite telling since it is very much in line with the ideas of 60 years ago.
So I ask again, is it because you think blacks are inherently inferior, that systemic racism drives different outcomes across income, health, education and all other metrics, or is there some other foundational driver you continually fail to share?
Another great example of the State of Minnesota using it’s limited resources on another bureaucrat who will generate a lot of reports and organize a lot of meetings that won’t make any difference what so ever to fix anything. Why not take the salary being spent on this new position and use it for something useful, like building affordable housing.
Truth hurts