It takes a village to find and implement strategies that promote positive health outcomes in communities across the U.S. — and the nation’s public health agency is working to promote these innovations.

“The best innovations that we've had for humankind have come from these types of collective strategies,” says Dr. Karen Hacker, director of the CDC National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

This week on the Health Disparities Podcast, we're joined by Dr. Hacker, who shares her insights on healthcare collaboration and bridging community-clinical services to help address social determinants of health, which are linked to chronic diseases that affect 6 in 10 Americans.

“The number one focus of our efforts is: How do we support the public health system to really think about strategies that are evidence-based to help their constituents across the nation make the healthiest choices that they can make?” she says.

Dr. Hacker joined Movement Is Life’s summit and spoke with steering committee member Sarah Hohman for this podcast episode.

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Collaboration is the cure: Dr. Vivian Pinn calls for renewed efforts to bring about health equity

Speaking at the university where she was the only female and only African American student in her class, and in the auditorium named for her, “Healing Hate” conference keynote speaker Dr. Vivian Pinn reflects on progressing her career during eras of segregation, discrimination, and civil rights. 

Pinn says it’s important to address the erroneous historical racial stereotypes that have informed contemporary unconscious bias. In working toward health equity, she says interdisciplinary collaboration is critical.

“You’ve got to work together,” Pinn says. “No one person, no one group is responsible for it all. That synergy of collaboration, you can't beat.”

She also describes her work at NIH, where she was the inaugural Director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health, and explains why it’s so important that everyone get involved at the socio-political level.

This episode was originally published in 2020 with host Dr. Randall Morgan. 

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Chronic stress from life in an unjust society can have measurable negative impacts on the health of people from marginalized backgrounds. 

The concept is known as weathering, and it’s the focus of the aptly named book by Arline Geronimus, a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a professor in the school of public health at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.

Weathering is exacerbated by racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination, and can contribute to health disparities, leading to earlier onset of diseases like cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. 

Geronimus compares modern-day stressors to the literal predators of the past and urges listeners to come together to explore systemic solutions that can help mitigate the effects of weathering.

“We all have to commit to seeing each other, to understanding the differences in our lived experience,” she says, “to seeing that different people have different ‘lions’ and ‘tigers’ …and figuring out what it is we have to do to change that.”

Geronimus joined Movement Is Life’s summit and spoke with Board Member Christin Zollicoffer for this podcast episode.

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Professor Augustus “Gus” White III didn’t just pioneer the understanding of unconscious bias through research methodology during his illustrious career as an orthopedic surgeon. The Harvard Medical School professor and author of “Overcoming” & “Seeing Patients” has also spent a lifetime fostering a culture of diversity and inclusion wherever he has worked, often by emphasizing our common humanity; his use of the term “fellow humans” to start speeches has become legendary.

“I think diversity and inclusion is a very important reality ideal to address,” White says. “It has numerous values for institutions, for people who are involved and for making progress in the direction of beginning to eliminate and adjust and correct for and protect our humanity, as well as our ethnic citizenship, if you will.”

This episode was originally published in 2019 with host Dr. Bonnie Simpson Mason.

Respectful, patient-centered communication can play a huge role in improving health outcomes and helping eliminate health disparities. 

In today’s episode hosted by Movement Is Life’s Conchita Burpee, we explore the critical elements of effective, patient-centered communication. Our guests:

Beverley says effective doctor-patient communication starts with heightened human value for each patient, regardless of their background or circumstances: “Everybody talks about being respectful and this and that, but if you don't value me, you think respect is going to come into your mind or your brain?”

Austin shares her personal experience as a lifelong chronic disease patient in explaining how small acts of kindness from healthcare providers can go a long way.

“I was having a really rough time just a few months ago, and of course, I'm there to talk with [my internal medicine doctor], and I'm crying,” Austin says. “She actually said, ‘Janet, I'm going to go ahead and book you to come back to see me in three months, I'm just going to make time for me to listen.’ And I just… I left so optimistic because someone said that they wanted to listen.” 

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When it comes to self-care, many people think of taking a break due to exhaustion or burnout. But the acts of self-care that make a real difference go beyond self-soothing, says Ariel Belgrave, an award-winning health and fitness expert, wellness consultant, and the founder of Gym Hooky. 

Belgrave challenges people to consider self-care as an investment in their future selves.

“The mindset shift I challenge folks to have is: thinking about the future version of you,” Belgrave says. “...The reality is: Taking care of yourself now could be the difference between your independence and being in a nursing home.”

This week on the Health Disparities podcast, we revisit a conversation between host Dr. Tamara Huff and Ariel Belgrave debunk self-care myths and explore alternative approaches to prioritizing yourself using the P.A.U.S.E. method.

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Over the past two decades, nearly 200 rural hospitals have closed, resulting in millions of Americans losing access to an emergency room, inpatient care, and other hospital services. And today, more than 700 rural hospitals in the U.S. – or approximately 1 in 3 – are at risk of closing due to financial problems, according to a report from the nonprofit Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. 

All this comes at a time when rural health disparities are rampant. In the final episode of our rural health series, we consider solutions: What does it take to prevent rural hospital closures? What evidence-based solutions can policymakers consider to ensure all Americans have access to critical health services, regardless of where they live?

Health Disparities podcast host Bill Finerfrock speaks with Harold Miller, president and CEO of the Center for Healthcare, Quality and Payment Reform and adjunct professor of public policy and management at Carnegie Mellon University. 

Miller says many people assume that when a rural community loses a hospital, it’s one of several options, when in reality, “in many small rural communities, the hospital is the only place to get any kind of health care. It is the only place where, not only where there is an emergency department, but because there's no urgent care facility in the community, there's no other place to get a lab test, there may not even be primary care physicians in the community.”

When it comes to policy considerations to prevent rural hospital closures, Miller says there need to be a greater emphasis on the role private health insurance plans play in putting hospitals at risk.

“The myth, unfortunately, is that the problem of rural hospital payment is all about Medicare and Medicaid, and that has led people to focus, I believe, inappropriately and excessively, on Medicare and Medicaid,” he says, “when what we have found is that the biggest problem for most rural hospitals is private insurance plans who don't pay the rural hospital even as much, in many cases, as Medicare or Medicaid does. … We need to start thinking about how to solve the real problems and to solve them now, rather than waiting until the hospital is faced with closure.”

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In our latest podcast series, we’re taking a deep dive on rural health, going beyond the common tropes about rural America – the older, sicker, poorer narrative – and checking in with folks on the ground who are excited to do the work of promoting equitable health outcomes for rural Americans. 

Today, Health Disparities podcast host Sarah Hohman talks with two rural health providers:

Johnson explains some of the unique challenges facing rural communities, which are incredibly diverse.

“In my county alone, I have multiple communities, and they each have their own challenges, their own culture, their own history and beliefs,” Johnson says. “And that all comes to the table when they come to the doctor, and I have to be prepared for that.”

Wimmer also shares what he loves about providing care in his rural community.

“When you walk around, people talk to you and you know them personally, and they know you,” Wimmer said. “They're not ignorant to the fact that you're working with limited resources. They know that they're remote, they know that it's hard for you to sometimes help them with what they need. But the fact that you're there with them every day is not lost on them. They appreciate everything that you've done. They know that you're what they've got.”

Never miss an episode – be sure to subscribe to The Health Disparities podcast from Movement Is Life on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

When we consider what it takes to improve the health of rural Americans and address rural health disparities, there's no one size fits all solution. Because, as the saying goes, if you’ve seen one rural community, you’ve seen one rural community.

In our latest podcast series, we are digging into rural health: the challenges, and the opportunities. We’re highlighting the diversity of rural communities and addressing common misconceptions..

In today’s episode, Health Disparities podcast host Sarah Hohman checks in with three people who work in rural hospital leadership and administration, doing incredibly important work, often with limited resources:

• Michael Calhoun, Chief Executive Officer/Executive Director for Citizens Memorial Healthcare, an integrated healthcare system serving over 130,000 residents in southwest Missouri. 

Some of the biggest challenges are related to the health care workforce and staffing, in particular for specialty care.

“If we lose a chemo nurse in a town of 10,000 there's not five other ones looking for that job,” Bartlett says. 

“What I'm concerned about is just our aging population and how we're going to be able to train a workforce enough to be able to care for all the people that need it, that's a real concern,” Calhoun says. 

All three guests addressed common misconceptions about rural America, and emphasized the benefits of rural, including a slower pace of life and having providers who are passionate about the mission of providing excellent, personalized health care.

“The patients that we care for are our friends and our family and our community members,” Shelast says. “We take care of them on the very best days of their life — maybe when they're welcoming a life into the world — and on the worst days, when they're having a medical emergency or they've received a terminal diagnosis, and it is just such a great experience to be able to go up to that person and say, 'I'm here for you.’”

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People in rural areas have higher rates of certain chronic conditions and disabilities and can expect to live a couple years shorter, on average, compared to people in urban areas. The health disparities facing rural Americans stem from many factors – including geographic, economic, social, and systemic issues. 

But in the midst of all this, there is hope. There’s greater awareness of the importance of rural health care and public health resources, and a growing number of federal agencies dedicated to supporting data-driven solutions aimed at addressing rural health challenges.

Two individuals behind some of those efforts join the Health Disparities podcast to discuss rural health challenges and opportunities:

• Tom Morris, Associate Administrator for the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy at HHS

“There's been a lot of focus on access to health care in rural areas, which is absolutely incredibly important,” Hall says. “But I also think we need to really pay attention to the public health infrastructure, which has also been decreased because of budget issues [and] because of the impact of the pandemic.”

Addressing rural health needs is a bipartisan issue, says Morris.

“There may be disagreements about how you get to the outcome, but there's no disagreement about what the challenges are,” Morris says. “...The partisan divide sort of falls apart when you dive into the issues.”

Morris and Hall speak with Health Disparities podcast host Bill Finerfrock about the priorities of their respective offices, common myths about rural America, and what gives them hope as they consider the future of rural health.

Never miss an episode – be sure to subscribe to The Health Disparities podcast from Movement Is Life on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.