About Us

The Health Equity discipline is designed to equip our students with the knowledge and skills needed to understand and respond to the challenges of ensuring an equitable and inclusive healthcare system. Health equity is incorporated across the YSM curriculum to enhance knowledge and clinical skills, so students are ready to provide high-quality care for all patients. Achieving health equity will require rigorous science and innovative approaches that identify the mechanisms(s) of health disparities and address the systemic barriers, social policies, and specific health needs of patients with disparate health outcomes. The Health Equity team, along with its Advisory Group, creates and curates educational content that engages learners from the pre-clerkship phase and extending into the advanced training period.

The Health Equity team partners with educational leaders and faculty in the School of Medicine, including the Physician Associate program and the MD-PhD program, so curricular content related to the major domains of the Health Equity discipline is comprehensively addressed. Continuing medical education for faculty in health equity is an essential component of the Health Equity discipline, and is offered through retreats, conferences, videos, workshops, and one-on-one consultation with colleagues.

The strategic goal of the Health Equity discipline is to educate the next generation of physicians and physician-scientists to understand the mechanism(s) underlying health disparities and understand where there are gaps in our knowledge, and to develop the skills to recognize and surmount structural barriers to high-quality healthcare. The Health Equity discipline’s vision is that YSM students will help shape and lead a more equitable healthcare system and reimagine healthcare delivery to reduce disparate outcomes. As leaders, our graduates will conduct research that advances knowledge, innovate in medical education, and change systems and structures that perpetuate health inequities.

The Health Equity discipline works to educate the next generation of physicians and physician scientists who will reshape a more equitable healthcare system. In short, the Health Equity discipline will enable students to advance knowledge, advocate and promote change for equity through professional or community collaboration, and engagement with policy makers. Highlighting specific skills needed to become an effective advocate for patients, the Health Equity discipline includes content to help students learn how to think critically, evaluate evidence effectively, write convincingly, and speak persuasively. Learning advocacy is a valuable life skill that improves confidence, clinical skills, and research skills. As part of that commitment, the Health Equity discipline champions student-led initiatives that advance these goals.