Health Care heroes
Dr. Giselle Corbie By An n a- Rh esa Ver sol a
r. Giselle Corbie
sees beyond the numbers and data collected through scholarly research about health outcomes. She sees the deeply personal stories that can help drive systemwide improvements of quality health care access for all. “Too many families in the U.S. experience barriers to healthy living, and it’s important that we all work together to make sure all of our communities are healthy and that no family experiences gaps in care and that everybody has the opportunity to make a healthy choice,” Giselle says. She directs the UNC Center for Health Equity Research and serves as Kenan Distinguished Professor in two departments within the UNC School of Medicine. Last year, she became senior vice provost for faculty affairs. Inspiration for Giselle’s profession comes from her own family’s experience with health inequalities. Her Trinidadian parents, Valmond “Val” Corbie and Aileen Corbie, migrated from England to New York in the early 1960s with their first-born daughter, Roxanne Corbie. She was discovered to have a fatal congenital heart defect. Val, who worked for the New York City Transit 66
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“I think fundamentally any of us who do this work have a foundational belief in the good of people, and that is born out of hope. You have to have hope for a brighter future to be able to do this work.”
November/December 2024
– Dr. Giselle Corbie
Authority, and Aileen, a nurse, raised Giselle and her three younger siblings in Brooklyn. “That story of the challenges they faced as my sister was dying was a family narrative about how systems can be put in place even when a 6-month-old child needs emergency care,” Giselle says. “I think that was what drove me to medical school. Then, within medical school and residency during my training at Yale [University], I clearly saw how people were making decisions based on the social identities of one group versus another group, and that’s really what sparked my interest in this research.” The COVID-19 pandemic revealed health disparities embedded among those who neither have access to quality health care nor the means to avoid higher risks of exposure that include employment in essential work settings, relying on public transit and working in low-paying jobs with few or no sick days. Giselle says these social determinants of health are conditions shaped by numerous factors, like socioeconomic policies and political systems. “As a physician, if I tell someone, ‘I want your diet to change’ or ‘I want you to get more exercise,’ there needs to be the opportunity to make those changes,” Giselle says, noting external forces that affect a person’s ability to lead a healthy lifestyle. From a broader perspective, Giselle asks, “Who makes the decisions about the opportunities in communities to find affordable, fresh fruits and vegetables, eating a diet that is full of healthy foods, exercising in a place that’s safe? This is not about pulling [ourselves] up by our bootstraps and asking people to do more with less. [It’s about] holding [authorities] accountable for making sure those opportunities are available in our communities.” She makes the point that systems are made of people and individuals who have the power to decide how policies and practices impact health outcomes. “We’ve seen that happen across societies and across time,” she says. “I fundamentally have hope that this work can make a change. We’ve seen the difference that one person can make, and even more [so] when you come together with communities that deeply understand and experience inequalities. That voice is incredibly powerful and can help shape the research in ways that are deeply impactful.” Giselle does not work alone to tackle inequities in communities and within our health care system. “I have an incredible team of people who I get to work with and colleagues across the eastern part of the state who motivate this work in ways that I never could,” she says. “Because of their lived experience, they really understand what the issues are, and I bring my expertise around scientific inquiry to the table. It’s the diversity of opinion we bring when we come together to solve these problems that allow us to come up with creative and innovative ways to tackle complex problems.” CHM