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Health Equity
Objectives: To support IAFP members' educational needs in health equity, including implicit bias training, member activities, and discussions, and to create a network of IAFP physicians and students committed to health equity.
IAFP's definition of health equity: Health equity is realized when each individual has a fair opportunity to achieve their full health potential. Achieving health equity requires treating everyone justly according to their circumstances: equality is an outcome of equity. Societal efforts must be undertaken to address structural inequalities that create group-differentiated access to resources, as well as differentiated vulnerabilities to harm” (IHI, Healthy People 2020, Race Matters Institute, Structural Competency Workgroup, Am J Public Health).
This course provides doctors with the essential skills to deliver comprehensive care to refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented immigrants. Presented by resident member Dr. Victoria Kyerematen. The recording is available on the IAFP OnDemand Education YouTube channel. You can watch it and still earn CME credits by following the instructions in the "Description" section below the video.
Our member interest group webinars are supported in part by a grant from the AAFP Foundation Family Medicine Chapter Alliance, which is funded by members like you! Help programs like this continue to support family medicine by giving to the FMPC. When making your gift online, select “Chapter Grants” (www.aafpfoundation.org).
Earn free CME credits while learning practical strategies for managing health conditions in adults with Down syndrome. The lead author and reviewer is Brian Chicoine, MD, an IAFP member and founder and director of the Adult Down Syndrome Center at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, IL. He was also named the IAFP Family Physician of the Year in 2019.
These resources support LGBTQI+ community members in crisis. The 988 Lifeline is available via call, text, and chat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call or text 988 or text TALK to 741741.
Please click the button below to visit the AFSP website for tools that provide crisis intervention, mental health support, community connection, education, and advocacy.
The AAFP EveryONE Project™ is the online platform offering education and resources to help define and address health equity. Access the AAFP member-facing page with training resources here and share this patient-facing page with your patients and community.
Read the Taking Account: A History of Racial Harm and Injustice Against Black Illinoisans, a report commissioned by the State of Illinois African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission (UIC Institute for Research on Racism & Public Policy, December 2025).
Here are the first steps you can take:
1. Reflect on existing biases and privileges you may bring to the table.
"It's Time: Six Steps to Creating an Anti-Racist Clinic" (AAFP, Fam Pract Manag. 2023;30(4):23-26)
View all AAFP CME activities on Health Equity to enhance patient care and earn CME credit
2. Identify one socio-economic factor that may contribute to health inequity in your community.
3. Join our IAFP Health Equity Member Interest Group to connect with Health Equity champions.
Education with state and national family medicine advocacy resources:
Overcoming Implicit Bias: A Workshop for Residency Programs
Student-Led Town Hall on Racism and Equity
Resident Leaders Blog Post
Implicit Bias Training 2025
AAFP's Advocacy Focus: Health Equity
AMA's EdHub National Health Equity Grand Rounds Learning Series
STFM's Online Advocacy Course for Family Medicine Professionals
To assist your patients:
AAFP's Neighborhood Navigator to search for supportive community resources by zip code
211 Metro Chicago is a 24/7 service connecting patients to resources like housing, food, and mental health support
Use Your Voice by writing an Op-Ed or Letter to the Editor
AAFP Blogs David Mitchell Social Media/Commentary Editor
KevinMD.com, the web’s leading social media health platform
Local newspapers (check the publication’s website for instructions on how to submit Letters to the Editor and Op-Ed, and any word count limits)
Doximity
Tips for writing an Op-Ed from the Harvard Communication Project
Make sure to have a headshot photo ready
You can also contact Ginnie Flynn, Vice President of Communications, for assistance with your message.
“Americans believe in the reality of ‘race’ as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world. Racism—the need to ascribe bone-deep features to people and then humiliate, reduce, and destroy them—inevitably follows from this inalterable condition. In this way, racism is rendered as the innocent daughter of Mother Nature, and one is left to deplore the Middle Passage or Trail of Tears the way one deplores an earthquake, a tornado, or any other phenomenon that can be cast as beyond the handiwork of men. But race is the child of racism, not the father” (Ta Nehesi Coates, Between the World and Me).
To understand racism, one must recognize how it functions on various levels: personal, interpersonal, institutional, and structural.
