Challenging Disparities: Access to Mental Health Care

Tuesday, March 1, 2011  |  2 to 3 p.m.
 

On this upcoming conference call of RWV’s Health Equity Working Group we discussed disparities in access to consistent and adequate mental health care for low-income women and women of color.

On this call we discussed the role of mental health care as it relates to treatment seeking barriers. If individuals feel they won’t be understood because of cross-cultural issues, they are more likely to seek treatment in outpatient setting such as ER, where there is limited-follow up.  We also made the important connection between the impact of mental health on physical health. As we move forward with health care reform, it’s important that we include other factors that relate to adequate treatment and health care, beyond race/ethnicity. 

Featured Speaker:

Dr. Janet Taylor. Dr. Taylor is a clinical instructor of psychiatry at Columbia University at Harlem Hospital.  She is on the front line battling the emotional and economic impact of mental illness. While living in Vancouver, British Columbia, Dr. Taylor practiced community psychiatry at Greater Vancouver Mental Health. She is also a consumer health strategist and certified life coach. Her company, Mind Projects, Inc., specializes in corporate stress management and consumer health strategies. Dr. Taylor recently completed her master's degree in Public Health at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

For more information, please see the following resources that Dr. Taylor mentioned on the call:

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance

National Alliance on Mental Illness

McArthur Foundation

Gender: From Disparity to Equity

Tuesday, January 11, 2011  |  2 to 3 p.m.

On this conference call of RWV’s Health Equity Working Group we heard from reproductive justice advocates working to expand health care equity to include gender identity.

SPEAKERS INCLUDE: Kellan Baker, the Senior Policy Associate at the National Coalition for LGBT Health; Veronica Bayetti Flores, Senior Policy Analyst at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health; and Eesha Pandit, Director of Advocacy with Raising Women’s Voices.

THESE ADVOCATES WILL SHARE THEIR STRATEGIES to address gender-based inequities by utilizing the provisions in the health reform law that are aimed at reducing disparities. Examples include increasing access to preventive care services and utilizing data collection to adequately represent marginalized communities. They will also discuss how to use the health equity frame to make an impact at the state level via implementation of the health reform law.

Join us for this important conversation.

Speakers:

Kellan Baker is the Senior Policy Associate at the National Coalition for LGBT Health, where he develops and implements the Coalition's broad range of LGBT health policy efforts. His work includes fighting for LGBT inclusion in health care reform, enhancing LGBT indicators in federal public health initiatives like Healthy People 2020, improving federal and state data coll ection on LGBT health and health disparities, and pursuing advocacy with federal policymakers. He spent the summer of 2009 on break from the Coalition in the White House, where he interned for the Special Assistant to the President for Disability Policy. In addition to his work for the Coalition, Kellan is a board member of the DC LGBT Community Center and helped achieve marriage equality in DC as co-chair of DC for Marriage. Kellan is pursuing dual Masters Degrees (MPH/MA) in Global Public Health Policy and International Development at George Washington University. 

Kellan and the National Coalition for LGBT Health provided an analysis of the ACA for our participants to use, as well as a set of fact sheets on nine priority areas for the LGBT community in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

Verónica Bayetti Flores is Senior Policy Analyst at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. Veronica comes to the Latina Institute with a wide range of experiences in reproductive justice, including direct service work, research, and advocacy. She began her work in sexual health as an HIV and sexual health counselor at a community clinic during her time as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has since worked to increase access to contraception, fought for paid sick leave, demanded access to safe public space for queer youth of color, and helped to lead social justice efforts in Wisconsin and New York City. In 2008, Verónica obtained her Master’s degree in the Sexuality and Health program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She currently serves on the boards of the National Coalition for LGBT Health and the National Network of Abortion Funds. At NLIRH, Verónica conducts research and analysis of national policy that affects the sexual and reproductive health and rights of Latinas, as well as writing and speaking about these issues.

Eesha Pandit is Director of Advocacy of the MergerWatch Project, where she works on the Raising Women's Voices project. Previously, Eesha served as Associate Director of Programs at the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program at Hampshire College. She has formerly been a weekly staff writer for RH Reality Check and has also worked with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University and Amnesty International USA's Women's Rights Program. She currently serves on the board of the New York Abortion Access Fund and is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and the University of Chicago. Eesha and Raising Women’s Voices compiled a strategy memo about how to become involved in your progressive health reform advocacy coalition. 

Abortion as a disparities issue

Thursday, December 9th, 2010  |  2 to 3pm

On December 9th, RWV’s Health Equity Working Group hosted a very informative webinar entitled, Framing Access to Abortion as a Health Disparities Issue. The presenter was Tracy Weitz, PhD, MPA, of UCSF’s Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. The restriction of abortion coverage in public insurance has grown over the years, she noted, and will now be affecting millions more women with implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Those experiencing the restrictions will include women who became newly-eligible for Medicaid and those buying private insurance with federal subsidies in state insurance exchanges.

According to Dr. Weitz, we have traditionally viewed abortion through the lenses of  morality and legality: we have judged whether women should be “allowed” to have abortion based on whether we think women have moral obligations to fetuses or whether it is constitutional to limit their rights to abortion. However, Dr. Weitz advocates that we should take a completely different approach, looking at abortion from a public health standpoint.

For a detailed summary of this presentation, please refer to the PowerPoint slides.

How Can We Achieve Equity: Potential Impacts of Health Reform

Tuesday, August 3, 2010  |  2 to 3pm

In our first Health Equity working group conference call, we will hear from health equity expert, Lisa Renee Holderby, who currently serves as Director of Health Equity at Community Catalyst. 

Lisa Renee has almost 20 years experience working to improve health in Massachusetts as a community health worker (CHW). She joined Community Catalyst, a national organization working to impact health care by strengthening the voice of consumers and communities, in September 2009 as the Director of Health Equity. Prior to joining Community Catalyst, she served as the founding executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Community Health Workers (MACHW). She was the first community health worker in the nation to be employed full-time as an executive director of a CHW association. Under her leadership MACHW became a national leader and a model for emerging CHW organizations. Ms. Holderby has worked to promote the full integration of CHWs in health care and human service delivery systems by engaging CHWs in policy development. She is a respected leader in the community health worker movement and has represented CHWs in several national initiatives. Ms. Holderby served as co-chair for the HRSA Community Health Worker Workforce Study’s Technical Advisory Group and has been an invited speaker at conferences across the nation. Lisa Renee is active in the American Public Health Association and is the current chair of the CHW section. She was honored as the recipient of APHA's 2008 Helen Rodriguez-Trias Social Justice Award for her work to increase access to health care and social services. 

Community Catalyst has recently released a report on health equity and community advocacy which Lisa Renee Holderby discussed on the call: A Path Toward Health Equity: Strategies to Strengthen Community Advocacy. Please find that report and other materials on health equity here.

Get a share of health reform grant funding!

States are preparing grant applications to the Department of Health and Human Services for money made available by the new health reform law. Act now to urge your state officials to include women’s health organizations in the grant proposals they will be submitting!

There is a pot of grant money available to help states strengthen their Consumer Assistance Programs so that ordinary folks will be able to learn how to use the reformed health system and get the insurance they need. States have the option to share these grants with community-based organizations, which could work directly with their constituencies – such as women – to educate them about the new law and answer questions. Read more about this grant opportunity here.