Noting that COVID-19 didn’t create inequities, but elevated their impact on communities, Bechara Choucair, M.D., senior vice president and chief health officer for Kaiser Permanente and former White House vaccine coordinator, closed the 2022 Accelerating Health Equity Conference with lessons learned from fighting the coronavirus as a health system and a nation.

“For us to be able to lift up and support people to be healthy, we have to support their social health, their mental health and their physical health,” Choucair said. “You can’t expect someone to live a healthy life if they don’t have a stable roof over their head.”

The closing keynote brought to an end three days of conversations about health equity, community partnerships and ways hospitals and health systems can best support their diverse communities.

Other Day 3 highlights included:

  • A session on connecting care with social needs, with insights from health care leaders in two distinctly different cities, Washington, D.C., and Cleveland.
  • A discussion of one person’s advocacy work in his Port Arthur, Texas, community to secure environmental justice.
     

Related News Articles

Blog
Happy New Year to all! It’s exciting to experience the shift in the calendar because it’s an opportunity for us to look with optimism at what is to come.…
Headline
AHA will again host a series of in-person meetings to provide the field with valuable insights and productive networking. Members and others can register now…
Headline
Registration for AHA's 2024 Accelerating Health Equity Conference, May 7-9 in Kansas City, Mo., opens Dec. 6 with an early-bird discount period that runs…
Headline
The final day of the 2023 Accelerating Health Equity Conference featured Dr. Brian Smedley, equity scholar at the Urban Institute, as the closing plenary…
Headline
Technology was the topic for the May 17 plenary session discussion between Ivor Horn, M.D., director of health equity and social determinants of health at…
Headline
AHA’s 2023 Accelerating Health Equity Conference began today in Minneapolis, convening more than 800 stakeholders working at the intersection of health care…