As part of its draft Strategic Plan for 2022-2026, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is looking for feedback from the public. The plan has five strategic goals for how the department will achieve its mission: Protect and Strengthen Equitable Access to High Quality and Affordable Health Care
Safeguard and Improve National and Global Health Conditions and Outcomes
Strengthen Social Well-being, Equity, and Economic Resilience
Restore Trust and Accelerate Advancements in Science and Research for All
Advance Strategic Management to Build Trust, Transparency, and Accountability At Salud America!, we believe that improving healthcare by making it more accessible and culturally tailored for people of color will help build health equity. This means ...
Hispanic Heritage Month is here! This annual U.S. observance, from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, celebrates the histories, cultures, and contributions of Americans whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America. We at Salud America! invite you to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month in these awesome ways.
1. Learn How Hispanic Heritage Month Started
U.S. Congressmen Edward R. Roybal of Los Angeles and Henry B. Gonzales were among those who introduced legislation on the topic in 1968. President Lyndon Johnson implemented the observance as Hispanic Heritage Week that year. U.S. Rep. Esteban E. Torres of Pico Rivera proposed the observance be expanded to cover its current 30-day period. President Ronald Reagan implemented the expansion to Hispanic ...
Doctors have implicit, subconscious preferences for white patients over those of color, studies show. This is implicit bias. These biases — stereotypes that affect our understanding and decisions about others beyond our conscious control — lead to discrimination and health disparities. Fortunately, implicit bias can be “rewired” for compassion for patients of color. Download the free Salud America! Action Pack “Health Care Workers and Researchers: Find If You Have Implicit Bias and What to Do Next.” "This Action Pack will help you see if you have implicit bias, learn from others who have overcome their own implicit bias, and encourage colleagues to learn about implicit bias, too," said Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of the Salud America! Latino health equity ...
People who live in multifamily housing share air with their neighbors ─ including secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoke contains over 70 cancer-causing chemicals, and has killed over 2.5 million people. The dangers are especially serious in multifamily housing, where secondhand smoke can travel through doorways, halls, windows, ventilation systems, electrical outlets, and gaps around fixtures. Download the Salud America! Action Pack “Help Your City Adopt Smoke-Free Multifamily Housing!” The action pack will help you engage local leaders in exploring a smoke-free multifamily housing policy for common areas and individual units. "Experts say a smoke-free multifamily housing policy can protect the health of tenants and staff of apartments from secondhand smoke, as well as ...
More than 25,000 public comments were submitted to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) on proposed changes to the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). Our team at Salud America! developed three model comments asking FHWA to adopt a public health and Safe System Approach to reframe and rewrite the 700-page MUTCD, one of transportation engineering’s “bibles” that guides road creation. More than 2,100 people visited our model comments over 30 days and nearly 450 people submitted our model comments. “This enormous volume of comments (a more than ten-fold increase over the last time the MUTCD was updated in 2009) demonstrates the degree to which Americans want change,” according to a post from the National Association of City Transportation Officials ...
Over 530 members of Salud America! endorsed our public comment to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in their Request for Information (RFI) on how to advance racial equity and diversity within the biomedical research workforce, as well as advancing research on health inequities. Other organizations like the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Council On Governmental Relations, and Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology also submitted comments. The RFI was open for comment from March 1 to April 23, 2021. At Salud America!, we believe that increasing diversity among research leaders and clinical trial participants will help achieve true health equity, especially for populations disproportionately impacted by health issues and COVID-19, like the ...
What we engineer and build impacts public health, safety, and welfare. However, transportation engineering prioritizes convenience for people driving over safety for people walking or biking. This makes streets more dangerous for everyone, including drivers. Now is our opportunity to change all that. Public comments are wanted on revisions to one of transportation engineering’s “bibles,” the 700-page Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways (MUTCD). The MUTCD, which was last rewritten 50 years ago from the point of view of expediting vehicle movement, is full of assumptions, restrictions, and contradictions that hinder efforts to improve safety and create vibrant, welcoming streets. Submit one of three Salud America! model comments to tell ...
Social risk contributes significantly to poor health. These social risks—also known as social determinants of health—include food insecurity, housing instability, transportation insecurity, financial strain, and more. But without the right terminology about social risk, doctors and other healthcare workers may struggle to identify, support, and report patient’s social needs, which can harm health and hinder research. This is particularly problematic for Latinos and others who are overburdened by social risks. This why the Gravity Project, a coalition of experts on social risk, is recommending code changes and updates to CDC National Center for Health Statistics’ International Classification of Diseases-Clinical Modification, Tenth Revision (ICD-10-CM), which provides a ...
Many people think they harbor no bias toward other people. Or they believe they know their biases and don’t act on them. But everyone has implicit bias. Implicit biases are stereotypes that affect our actions and decisions about others, beyond our conscious control. Fortunately, these biases also can be “rewired” toward more compassion for others. Download the free Salud America! Action Pack “Find Out If You Have Implicit Bias and What to Do Next.” This Action Pack will help you see if you have implicit bias, learn from others who have overcome their own implicit bias, and also encourage others to learn about implicit bias, too. GET THE ACTION PACK! Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of Salud America! at UT Health San Antonio, created this Action Pack. With the ...
