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HPH Weekly: Diversity in healthcare is good for physicians and patients alike

Filed Under

Newsletter

Written by

Jo Zhou

Published

June 27, 2024

Read Time

2 min

This edition of Harvard Public Health Weekly was sent to our subscribers on June 27, 2024. If you don’t already receive the newsletter, subscribe here. To see more past newsletters, visit our archives.

Diversity in healthcare is good for physicians and patients alike

Colorful, diverse illustration of healthcare workers, doctors, nurses, and medical staff. — The Izel Art / Adobe Stock

Evidence shows that outcomes improve when patients see doctors that look like them, yet some politicians have made DEI a target of their “anti-woke” crusade. If they succeed, the health and health care of people of color could suffer, argues physician LaShyra Nolen.

Unhoused shows us the public health crisis under our noses

Close-up of black and white portrait photos of unhoused people in various expressions. — Photographs from Leah den Bok’s project “Humanizing the Homeless” displayed at the Mütter Museum’s exhibition *Unhoused: Personal Stories & Public Health*.

Unhoused: Personal Stories & Public Health, an exhibition at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, focuses “on our failure to pay attention to the public health problem on our doorsteps,” writes critic Julia M. Klein. The link between housing and health is complex, and Klein welcomes the exhibit’s “space to contemplate individual perspectives” in a conversation otherwise often dominated by data.

Inside CRISPR’s gene editing revolution

Jennifer Doudna speaks at the Aspen Ideas Health Conference. In the background is her interviewer, Alice Park. — Nick Tininenko / Aspen Ideas: Health

Jennifer Doudna shared a Nobel Prize for inventing a powerful gene editing technology. What comes next for CRISPR? Jina Moore Ngarambe, HPH’s managing editor, listened in on a conversation with Doudna at Aspen Ideas: Health.

Snapshot: Monitoring health better, by snail mail

A study from Sweden shows that health monitoring could be simpler, cheaper, and more inclusive for both individuals and communities—through the postal service.