Health Equity Digest – July 2023: Disrupting Diversity Strides in Education & the Social Inequity of Rising Temperatures

Welcome to a glimpse inside Real Chemistry’s Health Equity Digest, a monthly summary of relevant highlights and emerging trends in today’s complex, ever-evolving health equity space.

Sign up here to receive the complete digest to your inbox each month.

Disrupting Diversity Strides in Education

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned decades of precedent and struck down the use of Affirmative Action: Supreme Court strikes down college affirmative action programs. Affirmative action was implemented to ensure equal employment opportunities for applicants and employees of different backgrounds and address historical disadvantages faced by racial and ethnic minorities, particularly in education and employment. Now, it is considered unconstitutional for colleges, universities, and professional schools such as law, medicine, and nursing to consider race in admission decisions. As a result of this ruling, underrepresented groups, such as racial and ethnic minorities, women, and individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, will continue to face barriers in accessing opportunities and experiencing social mobility.

Affirmative action was implemented to ensure equal employment opportunities for applicants and employees of different backgrounds and address historical disadvantages faced by racial and ethnic minorities, particularly in education and employment. This impact will be felt at the forefront of every professional field. Even with affirmative action, inequities and gaps still exist across many sectors of society. While affirmative action did not directly address the social determinants of health (SDoH), it indirectly contributed to improving health outcomes by tackling some underlying factors that influence health inequities.

As we grapple with the impact of this course reversal relative to equity and access to education and employment, we must consider how this slows our progress toward achieving health equity and degrades our ability to address the SDoH effectively.

Healthcare companies and leaders can and should use the opportunity to reinforce their commitment in action to diversity, equity and inclusion – along with their understanding of how diverse workforces contribute to solving for inequities that hinder all people from experiencing better health outcomes.

On the Topic: Supreme Court strikes down use of affirmative action, a blow to efforts to diversify medical schools: “The decision comes as a blow to many in the field of medicine, which has been unable to appreciably increase the numbers of Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous doctors in recent decades. Many medical schools have turned to using race as one factor among many in admissions decisions to try to boost the numbers of students from underrepresented groups and help overcome obstacles to entry like MCAT testing that favor students from wealthier backgrounds.”

The Social Inequality of Rising Temperatures

Extreme heat is the number one killer of all natural disasters, and not all populations are affected equally. One of the main contributors to an increase in heat-related illness are housing disparities and residential segregation that forced many people of color and low-income people into urban areas with less green space and more pavement, building, and concrete spaces that absorb energy and retain heat. These urban islands are about Fahrenheit higher than temperatures in outlying areas, and nighttime temperatures are about 2 degrees-5 degrees higher. In addition, Of the outdoor workers, Black Americans and Hispanic people are disproportionately represented in the outdoor workforce with more than 40% of outdoor workers identified as either Black or Hispanic despite comprising about 32% of the general population.

From 2005 to 2015, the rates of emergency department visits for heat-related illnesses increased:

• 67% for Black people.

• 63%for Hispanic people.

• 53% for Asian Americans.

• 27% for whites.

Sign up here to learn more and to receive the full Health Equity Digest to your inbox each month.