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Health Equity
Objectives:
-Support IAFP members with education needs in health equity, such as implicit bias training, member activities, and discussions.
-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 IAFPEducation YouTube Channel. You can watch it and still earn CME credits if you follow 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. Select “Chapter Grants” when making your gift online (www.aafpfoundation.org).
Earn free continuing medical education (CME) credits while learning practical strategies for managing health conditions in adults with Down syndrome. The lead author and reviewer is IAFP member Brian Chicoine, MD, 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 are available to support LGBTQI+ community members in crisis. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in Illinois is accessible 24/7 in English or Spanish by calling or texting 988.
AAFP EveryONE Project is the online platform with education and resources to help define and address health equity.
Access the AAFP member-facing page with training resources here: Neighborhood Navigator | AAFP
Share this patient-facing page on FamilyDoctor.org with your patients and community: Neighborhood Navigator | Family Doctor
Here are the first steps you can take:
1. Reflect on existing biases and privileges you may bring to the table.
From the AAFP (August 2023): "It's Time: Six Steps to Creating an Anti-Racist Clinic"
Online CME: Anti Racism: Tools for Change
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 be connected with Health Equity champions.
Education with state and national FM Advocacy Resources:
Implicit Bias Workshop for Family Medicine Residency Programs
Student-Led Town Hall on Racism and Equity
Resident Leaders Blog Post
Implicit Bias Training 2025
Advocacy Modules
AAFP
IAFP Spring Into Action
Use Your Voice: Write an Op-Ed or Letter to the Editor
AAFP Blogs David Mitchell Social Media/Commentary Editor
KevinMD
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 to submit if required.
You can also contact Ginnie Flynn, Vice President of Communications, for assistance in finalizing 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.
