Health Equity Digest – March 2023: Women’s History Month & US Healthcare from a Global Perspective
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.
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Women’s History Month
March is Women’s History Month. If we are to truly commemorate Women’s History Month there must be an intersectional approach. There is no shortage of nuanced and dynamic conversations to be had about women, gender, inequality and injustice, especially when we look at the cumulative disadvantages and erasure faced by women who live at the intersections of multiple identities. Throughout history, women have been excluded, reduced and at times altogether written out. Women of color, trans women and queer women have been subjected to even more oppression and exclusion. International Transgender Day of Visibility is March 31.
Gender-affirming care, as defined by the World Health Organization, encompasses a range of social, psychological, behavioral and medical interventions “designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity” when it conflicts with the gender they were assigned at birth. The interventions help transgender people align various aspects of their lives — emotional, interpersonal and biological — with their gender identity. It is also facing increasing censure nationwide. Some states have either passed or introduced legislation to impede the freedom and bodily autonomy of trans people, if not erase their existence altogether. This resource displays all currently pending and upcoming anti-transgender legislation by state. As of February 16, 2023, 245 individual bills have been introduced.
– jewel bush, Vice President, Health Equity & Justice
U.S. Healthcare from a Global Perspective
A recent issue brief from the Commonwealth Fund analyzes U.S. healthcare from a global perspective. According to the findings, the U.S. has both the highest rates of avoidable deaths and highest maternal and infant mortality rates compared to other high-income countries. The U.S. also has the lowest life expectancy compared to other high-income countries, driven by significant racial and ethnic disparities. For example, in 2019, average life expectancy for non-Hispanic Black Americans was 74.8 years and for non-Hispanic American Indians and Alaska Natives was 71.8 years, which is four and seven years lower, respectively, than expectancy for non-Hispanic whites at 78.8 years.
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