Turning Health Equity from A Dream to Reality

One of the biggest social issues the U.S. faces today is how to achieve health equity, where everyone has a fair and just opportunity to reach and maintain their best level of personal health. The challenges are many, systemic, and interconnected – economic, institutional, educational, and social barriers prevent many with the greatest needs from being able to access the care and information they require.

Over the past decades there have been initiatives and efforts that aimed to address these issues, and impact seemed within reach: the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion, initiatives for mental health and substance abuse, place-based projects such as Promise Neighborhoods, public-private partnerships, and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments’ efforts, just to name a few.

Join us to discuss with thought leaders from government and industry how we make this moment different. It will be a deep discussion of the successes, failures, and unintended consequences of efforts to advance health equity, why the promises of previous efforts have often fallen short of moving the needle, and what we should learn from them to effect real change now.

We’ll Discuss:

• Identify contributors to health inequities and the obstacles to dismantling them
• Evaluate the roles that all levels of government play in addressing health equity needs
• Outline lessons learned from earlier outreach programs and ways to overcome their shortcomings today