Population Health – The Unfinished Journey with David Kindig: Episode 7, “Health Equity: Finding Common Ground”

In nine podcasts, David Kindig MD, PhD, a population health thought leader, is interviewed by Sanne Magnan MD, PhD about Kindig’s 50-year population health scholarly and policy journey, including many stories, anecdotes, and takeaways.

In our corresponding blog posts, we highlight some of the key moments and takeaways as a reminder for you to tune into previous and future podcasts. You can listen to Episode 1, “Once Upon a Time;” Episode 2, “The Story Behind the Book ‘Purchasing Population Health;’” Episode 3, “What Is Population Health?”;  Episode 4, “The Lonely Years;” Episode 5, “Picking Up Steam;” and Episode 6, “It’s All About the Money“.

Overview

In this episode, Kindig and Sanne discuss the role of equity when considering health disparities. Kindig describes the role of influential perspectives on his work, including those from David Williams, Jonathan Haidt, and Yukiko Asada, in his interpretation of morality and fairness.

He also discusses the role of race and racism in population health and the challenges of engaging with hot-topic issues, while emphasizing the importance of coalition building across political divisions. He also explains his provocative and contrarian statement: “The effort to reduce health disparities is hindered by viewing health equity only in terms of racial inequities.” And he argues for seeing inequities through multiple lenses to find common ground.

Highlights

1. The importance of finding common ground on health equity across the political spectrum.
2. The need to address both racism and classism in a policy framework.
3. The continuing need to focus on both absolute and relative rates of health burdens.

Listen to Episode 7

References

Kindig, D. 2015. Can There Be Political Common Ground for Improving Population Health? Milbank Quarterly 93(1): 24-27.

Haidt J. 2012. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Pantheon Books.

Isenberg N. 2016. White Trash: the 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. Viking.

Kindig, David. 2017. Population Health Equity: Rate and Burden, Race and Class. JAMA 317(5):467-468.

Kindig, D. 2019. Using Uncommon Data to Promote Political Common Ground in Reducing Infant Mortality. Milbank Quarterly 98.