How a coalition of Black health professions schools made health equity a national issue. Winner of the Phillis Wheatley Award by the Sons & Daughters of the United States Middle Passage Racism in the US health care system has been deliberately undermining Black health care professionals and exacerbating health disparities among Black Americans for centuries. These health disparities only became a mainstream issue on the agenda of US health leaders and policy makers because a group of health professions schools at Historically Black Colleges and Universities banded together to fight for health equity. We'll Fight It Out Here tells the story of how the Association of Minority Health Professions Schools (AMHPS) was founded by this coalition and the hard-won influence it built in American politics and health care. David Chanoff and Louis W. Sullivan, former secretary of health & human services, detail how the struggle for equity has been fought in the field of health care, where bias and disparities continue to be volatile national issues. Chanoff and Sullivan outline the history of Black health care, from pre-Emancipation to today, centering on the work of AMHPS, which brought to light health care inequities in 1983 and precipitated virtually all minority health care legislation since then. Based on extensive research in the literature, as well as more than seventy interviews with the people central to this fight for legislative and policy change, We'll Fight It Out Here is the important story of a vital coalition movement, virtually unknown until now, that changed the national understanding of health inequities. The work of this coalition of Black health schools continues, both in supporting the training of more doctors and health professionals from minority backgrounds and in advancing issues related to health equity. By highlighting these endeavors, We'll Fight It Out Here brings attention to a pivotal group in the history of the health equity movement and provides a road map of practical mechanisms that can be used to advance it.
David Chanoff (SOMERVILLE, MA) is the coauthor of more than twenty books, including Seeing Patients: Unconscious Bias in Health Care, and has written for the New York Times Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and more. Louis W. Sullivan (ATLANTA, GA) is a former secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services and the founding dean and president emeritus of Morehouse School of Medicine.
Preface Timeline Chapter 1. The Nadir Chapter 2. The Response Chapter 3. Abraham Flexner and the Black Medical Schools Chapter 4. AMHPS: The Founding Chapter 5. The Heckler Report Chapter 6. Landmark Legislation Chapter 7. AMHPS and the Secretary Chapter 8. The Office of Minority Health Chapter 9. The Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Chapter 10. A National Institute Chapter 11. A Common Mission Afterword Acknowledgments Notes Index
How a coalition of Black health professions schools made health equity a national issue.
An important, detailed account of the hard-won victories in the fight for equal health care access in the United States. -Foreword Reviews Racism in the U.S. health care system has been deliberately undermining Black health care professionals and exacerbating health disparities among Black Americans for centuries.David Chanoff and Louis W. Sullivan, former secretary of Health and Human Services, detail how the struggle for equity has been fought in the field of health care, where bias and disparities continue to be volatile national issues. -Washington Informer A pertinent and valuable exploration of the often-overlooked endeavors to address racial health disparities in the United States....The book captivates readers by weaving together political history and memoir, interspersed with interviews and reflections from those closely associated with AMPHS to paint a vivid picture of a critical historical period. -The FASEB Journal
