Tackling Health Disparities Through Local Youth

Courtesy of Hennepin Healthcare

Greeting Stewards, 

Health disparities—already a pressing public health concern prior to COVID-19—have escalated since the pandemic. Health disparities are defined as preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by the socially disadvantaged population. 

Here in Minnesota, Hennepin Healthcare is reaching out to local youth as one way to address the problem. Specifically, Hennepin Healthcare has been hosting Black Women with Stethoscopes Youth Summits. These youth summits hope to spark interest in healthcare careers among youth of color in the Hennepin County area. This is part of an initiative to diversify the healthcare workforce. 

Nneka Sederstrom, PhD, chief health equity officer at Hennepin Healthcare says, “One of the best, easiest, and quickest ways to decrease disparities within our black and brown communities is to have clinicians of the same race and ethnicity take care of those patients.”

Students between the ages of 13 to 18, primarily Black, Latinx and soon Native American, get to explore healthcare careers through hands-on activities such as learning to draw blood and a simulator for delivering babies. 

We love seeing these small but concrete steps toward addressing health inequities. And as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts. You can email us anytime at steward@umn.edu. 

Warmly,

Asheanna