Health Disparities
On May 5, Dr. Janelle White, Medical Director of Community Health, Atrium Health, presented to Healthy Charlotte Alliance on the important topic of Health Disparities in Our Community and What We Can Do About It.
Dr. White defined health disparities as the preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or in opportunities to achieve optimum health experienced by socially disadvantaged racial, ethnic and other population groups and communities.
Dr. White spoke to the social determinants of health, i.e. the non-medical factors that influence health outcomes, including the material, social and political factors of the environments of which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship and age that affect health outcomes and risks.
Dr. White challenged participants to be informed and remain up to date on critical issues impacting various populations, especially those historically marginalized in our community. Further, Dr. White encouraged us to use our voices to advocate and leverage whatever influence we have to support upstream, proactive initiatives that will ultimately have positive impacts on the social determinants of health.
