Building the Business Case for Health Equity

Does improving health equity also improve profitability? A trio of health industry experts chewed over that question and many more at a TCB Talks event at the Minneapolis Club on Thursday morning. TCB senior editor Liz Fedor moderated the panel.

Rachel Hardeman, Blue Cross Endowed Professor of Health and Racial Equity at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, started off the discussion by making a distinction between health equity and equality. Health equity, Hardeman told attendees, is the “state in which everyone has a fair opportunity to be healthy.”

“That’s different from equality, where we are making sure everyone has equal amounts of the same thing,” said Hardeman, who also serves as founding director of the Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity. “With equity, we’re digging into the fact that not everyone is starting at the same place. Not everyone has the same resources to achieve optimal health.”

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