A Call to Action: Leverage Health Policy to Advance Health Equity for All

The Challenge:  Structural racism and the unequal distribution of opportunities and resources routinely create systemic barriers to health care for marginalized racial and ethnic communities and along the lines of gender, immigrant status, and disability. This disenfranchisement is the root cause of disparities in health access, outcomes, and patient experience in the United States and around the world. Health inequities in health policy and research often result from decisions about what research topics are pursued, who is included, and what and how data is collected, analyzed and presented. These decisions can perpetuate or dismantle historic and current health inequities.

The Goal: Duke-Margolis aims to ensure that its health policy research and leadership contributes significantly to dismantling health inequities.

The Response:  Duke-Margolis is committed to critically examining and expanding its research portfolio to understand inequities in health care, access, and outcomes, as well as the policies that institutionalize them. In this work, Duke-Margolis is building on the Center’s ongoing efforts and research to develop evidence-based solutions to reduce inequities among historically marginalized populations.

Health Equity and Responding to COVID-19

Across the Nation

Duke-Margolis is working with state and national leaders to identify and share best practices for the equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, testing, and therapeutics.

• Read more about the COVID-19 Equity Learning Network, which is facilitating shared learning among governor-appointed health equity COVID-19 task force leaders in their efforts to accelerate progress toward health equity.
• Read more about Informing North Carolina’s COVID-19 Pandemic Response: Projected Service Needs of Medicaid Beneficiaries

Duke-Margolis team members are actively involved in the following programs:

• Read more about the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics-Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) Coordinating Center, co-led by the Duke Clinical Research Institute and UNC’s Center for Health Equity Research
• Read more about the Latinx Advocacy Team & Interdisciplinary Network for COVID-19(LATIN-19), a recipient of the 2020 Duke Presidential Awards

Around the World

Duke-Margolis Core Faculty members and researchers are focused on mitigating disruptions in primary care and other essential services, and increasing access to COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics in low- and middle-income countries.

• Read more about the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health, including Reaffirming the significance of global public good for health: solidarity in response to COVID-19 and future shocks.
• Receive weekly updates from Global Health Innovation Center’s project Mapping COVID-19 Vaccine Pre-Purchases across the Globe, by subscribing here. 
• Read more about the Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies, including Women-Inspired Strategies for Healthcare.
• Read more about work on integrating rehabilitation services globally.

Addressing Health Equity through Scholarship

Duke-Margolis is equipping future health leaders with the tools and knowledge to assess and address systemic, root causes of health inequity; apply health equity principles to research, program and policy design; and develop policies that advance health equity.

Read more about health equity education programming

Health Policy Courses

Duke-Margolis Bass Connections Projects

Duke-Margolis Bass Connections COVID-19 Pop-Up Theme

Anti-Racism and Health Equity Committee

Duke-Margolis established the Anti-Racism and Equity Committee (AREC) following George Floyd’s 2020 death from police brutality, We recognize as a Center the systemic racism and racial and ethnic health inequities present both nationally and locally. We are taking steps to be a workplace, and a research and education institution that embeds the values of anti-racism and equity in our research and academic programming. The Committee identified four high-level aims for the Center and its work:

• Research Practices and Priorities
• Academic Programming and Education
• Staffing, Recruitment, and Retention
• Communications and Operations

Read more about the ARE Committee here.

Margolis Resources

Publications

2021

• Addressing Early Challenges in COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution: State Strategies to Achieve Efficiency and Equity
• Building Public-Private Partnerships to Support Efficient and Equitable COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution, Access, and Uptake
• Prioritizing Equity in COVID-19 Vaccinations: Promising Practices from States to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Disparities
• State and Local Testing Strategies for Responding to COVID-19 Outbreaks in Communities
• Reducing Health Inequities in Michigan: A Case Study of The Coronavirus Racial Disparities Task Force
• Redesigning Maternity Care for the COVID-19 Era and Beyond
• How are Payment Reforms Addressing Social Determinants of Health? Policy Implications and Next Steps
• COVID19: The Time for Collaboration Between Long-Term Services and Supports, Health Care Systems, and Public Health Is Now

2020

• Supporting an Equitable Distribution of COVID-19 Vaccines: Key Themes, Strategies and Challenges Across State and Territorial COVID-19 Vaccination Plans

• COVID-19 Vaccines: Planning and Equitable Distribution and Access

• Right Patient, Right Time, Right Place: A Critical Challenge of COVID-19 Monoclonal Antibodies
• 2019 – 2020 Margolis Scholars COVID-19 Reflections

• COVID-19 has threatened to overwhelm health systems worldwide. What lessons can we learn about how to achieve ‘good health and well-being for all’?

• COVID-19: Maintaining essential rehabilitation services across the care continuum

Webinars

• CMMI and Value-Based Care after COVID-19: Actions Needed to Achieve Care Transformation and Health Equity Goals (June 10, 2021)
• Prioritizing Equity in COVID-19 Vaccinations: Perspectives form States and Public-Private Partnerships (May 20, 2021)
• Margolis Scholars Present: Then and Now: The Importance of Historically-Informed Approaches to Addressing Racial Health Inequities in Responding to COVID-19 (April 9, 2021)
• Medicaid in North Carolina: COVID-19, Disparities, and Opportunities for Transformation (March 23, 2021)
• Supporting COVID-19 Response and Health System Resilience: What Needs to be Done Next (December 14, 2020)
• Point of Care: Speaker Series - Moving the Needle for the Public's Health: Innovative Approaches to Improving Health and Advancing Equity (January 22, 2020)

Presentations

2021

• Rushina Cholera was a speaker on Identifying and mitigating social drivers of health to improve child health equity, organized by REACH Equity’s and the Center for Community and Population Health Improvement’s Health Disparities Research Works in Progress Seminar Series
• Andrea Thoumi was a moderator on Healthcare Access, Equity, & Success, organized by the Fuqua Sustainable Business & Social Impact (SBSI) conference

• Andrea Thoumi was a guest speaker on Daring Dialogues: COVID-19, organized by the Fuqua School of Business Community Engagement – Diversity and Inclusion

• Hemi Tewarson was a panelist on Building Confidence to Build Immunity: Vaccine Hesitancy and COVID-19, organized by the Alliance for Health Policy

2020

• Katie Greene was a panelist on COVID-19 Vaccines: The Realities and Next Steps, co-hosted by the National Academy of Medicine and the American Public Health Association (APHA).

• Andrea Thoumi was a panelist on Racial Inequality and COVID-19: International Perspectives at the Commonwealth Fund’s 2020 Virtual International Symposium.

• Hemi Tewarson and Margolis Advisory Board Member Esther Krofah were panelists on From Bench to Body: How the U.S. Health Care System Plans to Distribute COVID-19 Vaccines, organized by the Alliance for Health Policy