Health Equity, Language Access & Immigration

Achieving health equity - the highest health status for everyone - is a critical imperative for our nation and integral to ensuring our health system is economically sustainable, and meets the needs of all communities. Recent federal efforts, including the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and initiatives spearheaded by the US DHHS' Office of Minority Health have put our country on the path to racial and minority health disparities elimination. While the ACA represents a significant achievement toward expanding access to affordable insurance, a necessary component of achieving health equity, more is needed to address the social determinants of health. Racial and ethnic minorities, including Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (AAs and NHPIs), and sub-populations within communities of color, experience multiple barriers to health and health care, due to limited English proficiency, immigration status, disability, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, and geographic location. The Health Equity and Accountability Act (HEAA) of 2011 and 2012 provide the tools to address these inequities. The presentation addresses the importance of both protecting the ACA and advocating for policies that comprehensively address health inequities for AAs and NHPIs and other minority and under-served communities. We will describe our work convening the HEAA Working Group, a community group composed of almost 200 organizations, which worked with Congressional leaders to craft the HEAA. Further, we will discuss the importance of forming broad coalitions to advance public health needs that reach across diverse communities to help craft policy solutions.