Health Equity Resources for Media
From interviews to AAFP resources and research, find everything you need to cover health equity.
Congressional Testimony: Optimizing Longevity: From Research to Action
AAFP President, Sarah C. Nosal, MD, FAAFP, testified before the Senate Special Committee on Aging about how unaddressed health-related social needs across the lifespan can bring on or worsen many health conditions, including chronic diseases.
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.
AAFP Advocacy Focus: Health Equity
The AAFP advocates for policies that promote health equity with the goal of prioritizing preventive health and management of chronic conditions and ensure everyone has access to a family physician.
AAFP Advocacy Focus: Preventive Health
As the largest society of primary care physicians, the AAFP is committed to building healthy communities, lowering health care costs and improving patient health and well-being through high-quality health care delivery and access.
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: Access to Rural Health Care
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.
Medscape: Physicians, Hospitals Grapple With Looming Medicaid Cuts
The 19th: Medicaid cuts threaten services for pregnant people in rural America
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
Award-winning doc addresses health equity in DPC
Wendy Molaska, MD, FAAFP, says her direct primary care practice is addressing health equity by providing affordable care to her community’s large immigrant population.
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.
Neighborhood Navigator | AAFP
An AAFP tool listing 40,000+ community services by ZIP code (food, housing, transportation, legal and financial aid, etc.).
Maternal Diabetes
Featuring evidence-based guidance for use of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) in treating gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), the resources on this page will empower you to learn about treatment options that will improve patient health outcomes.
Family Doctor: Social Determinants of Health
Social determinants of health are the conditions in which we live, learn, work, and play. These conditions can influence the health and well-being of you and your community.
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.
The Geographic Distribution of Family Physicians Providing Maternity Care and Opportunities for Expanding Access to Care in Rural Areas
A 2025 study in the Annals of Internal Medicine explores the geographic distribution of family physicians providing maternity care and identifies opportunities for family physicians to expand access to maternity care.
Exploring Community-Based Residency Programs in High-Need Black Counties
Addressing health disparities requires targeted approaches that produce more Black primary care physicians in high-need areas, including expanding community-based residency programs (CBRPs), which are more likely to produce physicians in high-need areas. This research explores the relationship between high-need Black counties and the location of CBRPs.
Family physicians provide maternity care in and around the maternity care shortage areas, particularly rural
Study findings highlight the importance of considering the contributions of FPs to maternity care as the organizations prioritize resource allocation to areas of highest need.
Annals of Family Medicine: Health Equity
A collection of research related to improving health equity in family medicine.
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.
Maternal Mortality in the United States, 2025
This issue brief from the Commonwealth Fund examines the differences in maternal mortality rates between U.S. states, how maternal mortality contributes to health outcomes in communities and the overall picture between the U.S. and other countries.
Q: What are social drivers of health?
A: Social drivers of health (SDOH) are the conditions under which people are born, grow, live, work, learn and age. Studies have shown only 20% of health is determined by health care, leaving the other 80% up to the environment in which a person lives.
The factors that strongly influence health outcomes include a person’s access to medical care, nutritious foods, clean water, safe housing and reliable transportation. Factors like education, health literacy and job security are also major factors in someone’s health.
Q: How are family physicians uniquely positioned to address health disparities and advance health equity?
A: Health equity is integral to 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.
Because they build long-term relationships with patients and care for the whole person, family physicians can spot gaps in care early, remove barriers and connect patients with needed services and support. This continuity and broad scope of care helps expand access to affordable, high-value care and improves health outcomes across communities. Family physicians don’t just identify inequities, they work with patients to address them through preventive care, chronic disease management and coordinated support that promotes long-term health.
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 (CDHE) 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.
In 2018, 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 launched 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. The AAFP has also created action guides for Anti-Racism and Social Determinants of Health, to arm physicians with practical knowledge and tools to improve their workplaces and communities.
To help inform the AAFP’s 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 advocates for health equity by supporting policies that make care more accessible and affordable, especially for underserved communities. Our advocacy focuses on strengthening primary care, expanding access to preventive services and improving the management of chronic disease, while ensuring that social drivers of health are recognized and addressed across health care systems.
The AAFP promotes health equity by pushing federal agencies to protect and expand policies that help vulnerable patients get care. This includes advocating to retain Medicare physician payment for social needs screenings, supporting access to reproductive health services for VA and CHAMPVA patients, improving food labels so people can make healthier choices, and urging access to essential care regardless of documentation status. The AAFP also warns that restrictive federal proposals could widen gaps in care for low-income and underserved communities
We work to advance policies that help family physicians partner with community organizations and local leaders to reduce gaps in care and improve health outcomes. The AAFP views equity as a public health priority and reflects that commitment in our federal and state advocacy efforts.
The AAFP continues to reaffirm our commitment to safety-net programs like CHIP, SNAP and Medicaid that play a key role in bridging the gap of health disparities. Specifically, family physicians have supported legislation to facilitate transportation to improve access to vaccines, supported numerous policies that would help improve maternal and child health outcomes (such as requiring continuous 12-month Medicaid enrollment for postpartum moms) and efforts to improve access to telehealth services and digital health literacy amongst individuals with limited English proficiency.
Specifically, the AAFP supports a Health in All Policies approach to policymaking, increased investment in comprehensive primary care and strategies that improve population health. We also advocate for policies that expand and diversify the primary care workforce, including measures that reduce financial barriers to medical education and programs that fund family medicine training in underserved areas, so more communities have access to trusted, continuous care.