Nonprofit Quarterly: Remaking the Economy: Health, Racial Disparities, and Economic Justice

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NPQ’s latest webinar in their Remaking the Economy series looks at healthcare, the largest single sector of the US economy. Famously, the US pays more for healthcare than any other nation, 17.7% of the economy in 2019, yet its quality falls far short of other nations. Increasingly, healthcare’s shortfalls are recognized. This year, the American Medical Association formally recognized racism as a public health threat. And age-adjusted COVID-19 mortality rates for Black, Latinx, and Native Americans are twice that of whites. How can healthcare be retooled to address these disparities and promote better health?

Addressing these issues are our three panelists:

• Ben Palmquist is program director of health care and economic democracy for Partners for Dignity and Rights, a New York City-based nonprofit that advocates for a new social contract where everyone’s human needs are met.
• Al Richmond is based in Raleigh, North Carolina, and is executive director of Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, a member-based nonprofit that promotes health equity and social justice through partnerships between communities and academic institutions.
• Yolandra Toya, MD is a physician and community pediatrician, and a citizen of the Jicarilla Apache nation. In her practice, Dr. Toya is currently providing medical care to residents of both Native and non-Native communities in New Mexico.

This webinar will explore:

• What is the current status of the healthcare system in the US, and how does that differ according to race, class, and location?
• What does good community-based health research look like? How does poorly conducted health research in the past continue to cause problems in the present?
• This year the AMA and many US cities have declared that racism is a matter of public health. But what is required to convert words of concern into action?
• Is COVID-19 teaching us new things about healthcare in the US, or is it mostly confirming what was already known? If it is teaching us new things, what are they?
• What are the structural causes of healthcare injustice in the United States and what can be done to address them?
• What principles guide the US healthcare system, as it currently operates? What should those principles be?
• How do we get from “here” to “there”? In other words, what kind of transition policies are required?
• What role can nonprofits and philanthropy play in supporting economic and racial justice in the healthcare sector?

Whether you’re a nonprofit leader, board member, or engaged in community-based organizing, this webinar will provide you with real-life examples and lessons learned that can inform your work in your own community.

The moderator for this webinar is NPQ Economic Justice Program Director Steve Dubb. Steve has worked with cooperatives and nonprofits for over two decades and has been both a student and practitioner in the field of community economic development. You can send your questions to editorinchief@npqmag.org to have them answered during the web event.