Digging deeper into the data–with a focus on ethnicity and race–the North Carolina Association of Free & Charitable Clinics discovered a startling trend. White patients fared better than patients of color, a common outcome throughout the health care system.
The association, which provides health care services to uninsured and underserved residents, believed it was already making great strides in promoting health equity in a state with one of the largest uninsured populations, but the data painted a different picture.
Armed with a goal to improve what this troubling data showed, a new initiative was implemented by the association, Our Journey Toward Health Equity, which brought together a 29-member Health Equity Task Force composed of association staff, board members and clinic leaders for intentional discussions about health equity.
The North Carolina Association of Free & Charitable Clinics hopes to improve health outcomes for historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups.
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