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Health Equity Resources for Media
From interviews to AAFP resources and research, find everything you need to cover health equity.
For Media Inquiries, Contact
Julie Hirschhorn
Public Relations Manager
jhirschhorn@aafp.org
Emily Holwick
Public Relations Strategist
eholwick@aafp.org
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Hear from AAFP Leaders:
AAFP President-Elect Sarah Nosal, MD, FAAFP, and AAFP Board Member Dr. Kisha Davis, MD, MPH, FAAFP, discuss how family physicians can address and improve health equity during National Minority Health Month. Media outlets are free to use these interviews for broadcast or publication with credit to the AAFP.
AAFP Advocacy Focus: Health Equity
The AAFP is committed to advocating for policies that promote health equity with the goal of prioritizing preventive health and management of chronic conditions.
House of Medicine: A Diverse Physician Workforce is Critical for the Future of Medicine
The AAFP joins numerous medical organizations in supporting diversity, equity and inclusion in medical schools and pledging to continue advocating for policies and practices that encourage a more diverse physician workforce and enhance patient care.
Leading Physician Groups: Medicaid Program Must Be Protected
The AAFP and other medical organizations urge lawmakers to protect Medicaid to preserve access to high-quality health care.
Policy: Diversity in the Workforce
A diverse healthcare workforce reflective of the U.S. population is needed to address health disparities. The AAFP supports actions to help build the diverse workforce America needs.
Policy: Health Equity
The AAFP supports the attainment of the highest level of health for all people.
Policy: Race Based Medicine
The AAFP opposes the use of race as a proxy for biology or genetics in clinical evaluation and management and in research.
Policy: Rural Health Care, Access to
The AAFP supports programs and initiatives that increase access to health care in rural communities to address health disparities.
Position Paper: Advancing Helath Equity by Addressing to Social Determinants of Health in Family Medicine
Social determinants of health (SDoH) are the conditions under which people are born, grow, live, work, and age. SDoH, especially poverty, structural racism, and discrimination, are the primary drivers of health inequities.
Position Paper: Cultural Sensitivity: The Importance of Cultural Sensitivity in Providing Effective Care for Diverse Populations
Culturally and linguistically appropriate services, broadly defined as care and services that are respectful of and responsive to the cultural and linguistic needs of all individuals, hold the promise to reduce health disparities.
Striving for Birth Equity: Family Medicine's Role in Overcoming Disparities in Maternal Morbidity and Mortality
The maternal mortality rate in the United States is one of the highest in the developed world. As medical experts and trusted members of their communities, family physicians can serve as effective agents in facilitating and advocating for change.
Policy: Medical Schools, Service to Minority, Vulnerable and Underserved Populations
The AAFP supports inclusion of education on health care for minority, vulnerable, and underserved populations in medical school curricula and medical school recruitment from rural, minority and underserved populations.
Family physicians play a critical role in addressing health equity. See where we’ve been on the record:
CBS Philadelphia: Maternal death rate remains high in U.S. and particularly in Philadelphia
Medscape: Balancing Cultural Sensitivity and Patient Autonomy
Healio: How PCPs can use social drivers of health 'to affect positive change' in their communities
Medical Economics: To address the maternal health crisis, we must focus on the fourth trimester
NPR: Can family doctors deliver rural America from its maternal health crisis?
Patient Engagement HIT: How Family Physicians Can Solve US Maternal Health Problems
U.S. News and World Report: Primary Care Doctors Need Help to Achieve Health Equity
Q&A with CDEI-FM Chair: Bottom Line Is Improving Health of Communities
The AAFP’s Commission on Diversity, Equity and Inclusiveness in Family Medicine helps ensure the AAFP considers disparities in care, health and the family physician workforce in its work.
Action Guides Offer Steps Toward Health Equity
Action guides give family physicians concrete steps they can take to advance health equity while providing high-quality, individualized care that improves health outcomes.
EveryONE Project Policy Briefs Offer Fresh Engagement Tactics
The AAFP’s EveryONE Project published health policy issue briefs that give family physicians evidence-based recommendations to promote and advocate for health equity.
AAFP Sees Workforce Win in Coming Rural Residencies
In a win for the Academy’s workforce advocacy, HHS and the Health Resources and Services Administration announced a significant investment to establish new residency programs in rural communities.
AAFP Center for Diversity and Health Equity
The AAFP formed the Center for Diversity and Health Equity to address social determinants of health and increase family physicians’ ability to help respond to patients’ social needs.
The EveryONE Project
The EveryONE Project was created by the AAFP’s Center for Diversity and Health Equity to educate family physicians about health equity and equip them with tools to address social determinants of health.
The Health of US Primary Care: 2025 Scorecard Report — The Cost of Neglect
This year’s Scorecard report, authored by the Robert Graham Center, assesses the health of primary care at the federal level using measures of access, financing, workforce/training and research. It identifies five reasons impacting accessibility of primary care in the United States.
Improving Adult Immunization Rates Within Racial and Ethnic Minority Communities
The authors identified strategies and communication efforts used by family medicine physicians and their practices to increase immunization rates among adult racial and ethnic minority patients.
AFP collection: Care of Special Populations
This collection features content from American Family Physician on the care of special populations and related issues, including ethnic minorities.
FPM collection: Health Equity, Diversity and Social Determinants of Health
This collection features content from Family Practice Management relating to health equity.
Annals of Family Medicine: A Shared Bibliography on Systemic Racism and Health Disparities
Annals of Family Medicine compiled a list of scholarship from the family medicine community exploring racism in medicine.
Annals of Family Medicine: Health Equity
A collection of research related to improving health equity in family medicine.
Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2023
Data from the CDC shows maternal mortality rates in the U.S. in 2023 disproportionately impacting minority populations.
Commonwealth Fund: U.S. Maternal Mortality Crisis Comparison
This issue brief from the Commonwealth Fund examines differences in maternal mortality, maternal care workforce composition, and access to postpartum care and social protections between the U.S. and other high-income countries.
Key Data on Health and Health Care by Race and Ethnicity
This analysis examines how people of color fared compared to White people across a broad range of measures of health, health care, and social determinants of health.
Patient-Physician Racial Concordance Associated with Improved Healthcare Use and Lower Healthcare Expenditures in Minority Populations
The study analyzed several years’ worth of Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data and found that racial concordance between patients and physicians resulted in less ER use and reduced health care expenditures.
Achieving Racial and Ethnic Equity in U.S. Health Care: Scorecard
An extensive analysis from the Commonwealth Fund finds that health care systems are failing many people of color in every state.
Q: What are social drivers of health?
A: Social drivers of health (SDOH) are the conditions under which people are born, grow, live, work, and age. Studies have shown only 20% of your health is determined by your health care, leaving the other 80% up to the environment in which you live.
The factors that strongly influence health outcomes include a person’s access to medical care, nutritious foods, clean water, housing and transportation. Factors like education, health literacy and job security also impact a person’s health.
Q: How are family physicians uniquely positioned to address health disparities and advance health equity?
A: Health equity is integral to the practice of family medicine. Family physicians are uniquely connected to their communities and witness firsthand the social and structural inequities in health and health care that disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minority communities.
With deep knowledge of communities and experience caring for diverse patient populations, family physicians play an important role in identifying and addressing health care disparities impacting minority populations.
Family physicians build long-term relationships with patients and have a holistic view of their health. This makes them uniquely positioned to provide proactive, preventive care that prioritizes long-term patient wellness. Family physicians promote health equity by considering the balance of social determinants that impact the health of an individual, family, community, population and environment.
Q: How does the AAFP help family physicians advance health equity?
A: The AAFP is actively working to equip members with tools to address health inequities and improve access to high-quality primary care for all. The AAFP’s Center for Diversity and Health Equity exists to advance diversity in the family medicine workforce, advocate for policies and programs that promote health equity, increase awareness of social determinants of health, and promote health equity through collaboration with external organizations.
CDHE developed the EveryONE Project, which offers education and resources to help practices advocate for health equity, promote workforce diversity and collaborate with other disciplines and organizations to reduce harmful health disparities. The AAFP also helped launch the Neighborhood Navigator, an easy-to-use online search engine to find supportive social services by zip code. It’s available to both patients and physicians in 107 languages and lists more than 40,000 social services.
To help inform the AAFP’s DEI work moving forward and to expand leadership opportunities for family physicians, the Board of Directors approved the formation of the Commission on Diversity, Equity and Inclusiveness in Family Medicine, which helps guide the AAFP’s recommendations, policies and work addressing disparities in care, health and the workforce.
A wide range of Continuing Medical Education (CME) products provide members with both foundational knowledge and the clinical skills to address health disparities at the point of care.
Q: How does the AAFP advocate for health equity?
A: The AAFP is committed to advocating for policies that promote health equity through identifying and incorporating social determinants of health in all health care delivery systems — with the goal of prioritizing preventive health and management of chronic conditions.
Family physicians can mitigate health inequity, including systemic racism, by collaborating with community stakeholders to affect positive change for the populations they serve.
The AAFP recognizes equity as a public health issue and prioritizes it in our advocacy efforts to ensure that health care is equitable, accessible and affordable for all Americans. The AAFP supports a Health in All Policies approach to policymaking, investments in equitable and affordable access to comprehensive primary care, improvements in population health, and advancement of health equity.