ENDING
RACISM TOGETHER RWJBARNABAS HEALTH IS ON A JOURNEY TO CREATE TRUE EQUITY IN HEALTHCARE.
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WJBarnabas Health (RWJBH), the largest academic healthcare system in New Jersey, is addressing equity and systemic racism and promoting an antiracist culture throughout the organization and the communities it serves. Here, Barry Ostrowsky, President and Chief Executive Officer of RWJBH, and DeAnna Minus-Vincent, Chief Social Integration and Health Equity Strategist, explain what the system’s Ending Racism Together initiative entails.
Healthy Together
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Racism has been described as a public health crisis. What does that mean? [BARRY OSTROWSKY] We start with the proposition that there is structural racism in our society. The data show that whether you’re talking about food insecurity, housing, education, employment or financial and economic development, the majority of people who aren’t doing well are people of color, particularly Black people. When it comes
to healthcare, disparities of outcome for people of color, and particularly Black people, are deeply harmful. That is not a political statement. It is a data-driven statement. [DEANNA MINUS-VINCENT] Research shows that 80 to 90 percent of health outcomes are a result of social determinants of health—the conditions in which a person lives, works and plays. That’s important, because race itself has
Summer 2021
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