Better Health for All Americans: Bending the Arc Toward Justice

Abstract

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A., president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, delivered the keynote at the Institute for the Advancement of Multicultural & Minority Medicine Martin Luther King, Jr. Health Equity Summit on August 23, 2011. This summit, entitled “Enhancing Health Status and Achieving Health Equity at Lowest Cost,” is an annual public review and assessment of the nation’s progress in addressing inequalities in health and reducing health disparities and brings together leaders in health care, academia, industry and consumer/civic organizations as well as federal, state and local officials. In her remarks, Lavizzo-Mourey emphasized that America cannot reconcile the differences that divide us without also reconciling the inequality and injustice embedded so deeply in the health and health care of our people.