I wanted to introduce the concept of health equity in this webinar because I think this is a really important topic, and I think discussing poverty and discussing issues like structural racism, those things tend to lead to inequities and disparities that don’t allow for people to have equal opportunity for their full potential at health.

Health equity is really all of us coming together to understand how we best change processes, systems, policies, and programs to give everyone a fair opportunity to have their fullest potential at health. And so I like to use this baseball analogy because I think it really shows you we can give everyone equal things. We can give each of these children a box that’s the same.

But we can’t help them all to see the baseball game unless we reorganize how we think about it. And if we’re really in this to remove disparity and inequity and think about how we can all achieve our best health, we’ve got to think differently, innovatively, creatively. So we really are doing all of this through the lens of health equity.

Listen to the podcast for more, or learn more about Total Worker Health from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).