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In This Issue:
Tom Kieffer and Abigail Ortiz, both of Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center, are working to end racial health inequities in Jamaica Plain.
Tom Kieffer, MPH, and Abigail Ortiz, MSW, MPH, of Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center (SJPHC), are working to bring awareness to, and someday prevent, the health inequities between white residents and black and Latino residents in Jamaica Plain.
Once a month, they and community members from various local organizations meet as the Equity Collaborative to share insight about unfair differences in the quality of health across different racial groups. The Equity Collaborative began as a neighborhood partnership with funding from the Boston Public Health Commission and seeks to address social determinants of health-the circumstances in which people are born, live and work-especially as they relate to Jamaica Plain's youth population.
"Fifteen percent of a person's lifetime health is related to medical care," said Kieffer, SJPHC's executive director. "The remaining 85 percent is related to everything else, including genetic and social determinants of health such as housing, employment, education, food access and income. We've been working across sectors, with people involved from local housing, educational and youth-serving organizations. Our overall framework is how all of these things affect health."
For example, there are specific chronic diseases, such as asthma and diabetes, that disproportionately affect residents of color, said Ortiz, SJPHC's director of Community Health Programs, who convenes the collaborative's meetings.
One of the Equity Collaborative organizations, the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council, has formed an Ad Hoc Racial Justice Committee to explore how the council's work can be done using a racial justice "lens."
"To begin to understand this, we need to look at such environmental factors as the location of supermarkets and parks, and decisions about which parks get cleaned up first, what part of town billboards are located in and where the newest Dunkin' Donuts is opening, for example," said Ortiz. "These are city and policy decisions, but they all affect individuals' health. Personal decisions are affected by the things going on around you in your community."
Added Kieffer: "When people and organizations understand that what they do affects people's health and in turn, the health of the community, it changes the way people do their work. By working across sectors in the framework of health, everyone becomes part of the public health mission."
SJPHC offers free health equity training for community members on the first Friday of every month, 10 a.m.-noon. To learn more, call 617-983-4100.