(soft, inspirational music)
The RWJF Award for Health Equity Program
is a seven-year program initiated in 2015.
The Award Program recognizes and celebrates individuals
who have successfully implemented systems changes
to reduce health disparities.
Nine organizations have been selected
to administer the program.
Each of the grantee organizations shares
our vision for building a Culture of Health
and achieving health equity in the nation.
The winners are dedicated, amazing individuals
who are pioneering game changers in the work
that they do to develop and implement solutions
for achieving health equity.
Our award winner stories share several themes.
Community engagement.
Partnerships.
Risk taking.
And thinking outside the box.
(upbeat music)
So much of our programs are really,
once again, sit at the intersection
of mental health and social justice.
It's something we call healing justice.
And healing justice says that you cannot talk
about mental health without talking about racism.
You cannot talk about it without talking about misogyny.
You cannot talk about it with transphobia, homophobia.
All those things need to be in the conversation.
The unique ways in which different people experience
psychological distress or experience the stress
of the broader culture, are influenced by their gender,
their race, their class, identity, those pieces.
And so, when we talk about equity in context
of a mental health and healing justice work
that's going on in this country, we have to let clinicians,
healers, folks know that, that needs
to be part of the conversation.
I think cultural determinants of health perhaps at
least some of our research indicates could be even broader
than the social determinants of health.
Culture still jumps out as a greater
predictor of health outcomes,
more than the social determinants of health issues.
A lot more research needs to be conducted in these areas.
But I think we shouldn't necessarily
think of one or another,
but rather thinking about this concept
as social and culture determinants of health
much more comprehensively.
My take on health equity for my Crow people
is that for them to have the opportunity
to gain awareness, because awareness is powerful.
Like when a Crow woman just realized that she can
go in and have a Pap test and not end up
with cervical cancer, that was powerful.
Just a little bit of basic knowledge from someone
that they know and that they feel that cares about them.
They went in and had the Pap test.
In a rural setting in a rural county,
a lot of seniors don't have access to the resources
that maybe other seniors do, of more means.
And so, this program was very specific to those 100 seniors
and over a one-year time span,
what we uncovered was we were able to not only impact
the re-hospitalization rate, we decreased it by 57%,
but also, a 15% decline in the total spend.
So, the total Medicare dollar
that was getting spent, decreased by 15%.
And their overall health care status improved.
West Virginia Health Right's Mobile Dental Program
and Mobile Harm Reduction Program have taught me
and our entire community that change is sometimes necessary.
That you can't always do it the same way
that you've always done it.
That sometimes you need to look
at things new, different, unique.
You know, we're all creatures of habit.
But looking at this, it's made people be
more innovative and look at different ways to serve people,
different ways to meet need.
You can't always be egocentric, you know,
set up a clinic and come to me, come to me.
You have to think about going where the need is.
As a change agent, I don't always ask permission.
I sometimes don't even ask for opinions.
I just keep knocking on doors until someone answers.
I don't stay local.
I knock on national doors.
I don't stay within the confines of housing.
I knock on education doors or health doors.
I partner and I look for the connections
with my colleagues and when they see the connection
between their work and my work and we go in
as a combined voice, all of a sudden,
we are now louder and more effective together.
We use housing as an anchor but it changed so many things,
as an economic development opportunity for residents
in the community who are entrepreneurs.
It changed the image of people that the people had.
You know, we no longer had 11
lots of blighted land in our community.
We had transformed with $13 million of investment to lend.
We had created a marketplace that is an amazing marketplace
where people gather on a weekly basis
just to connect with one another.
And so, we really changed the perception,
we really changed the neighborhood,
the actual grid of the neighborhood.
We also, importantly, were able to celebrate,
celebrate our culture, celebrate our community
as a place that you wanna come and visit.
So, truly, transportation is a pathway to health
and not just a metaphor, but it is.
If we want people to be able to live a healthy lifestyle,
they have to be able to move around a community
in a safe and reliable way.
And that means they need to be able to get to a job,
they need to be able to get to medical appointments,
to preventative services, to access the healthy foods,
to their children's schools,
to be able to support their family.
So, we really think about how people move in our community,
and especially not always thinking
of the automobile being the first option.
Our traditions are related to health equity
because they address the trauma in the spirit.
A lot of Western methods only address the physical
and sometimes therapy doesn't really work for us.
We have to have a different method
to address the spiritual aspect of our trauma.
Some of the girls have their own personal traumas
as well as the trauma of their parents
and their grandparents, whether it be sexual abuse,
physical abuse, as well as our tribe's.
We've had a long, hard history.
And sometimes that history can't
be addressed by Western methods.
(soft music)