While the political winds have shifted dramatically, the fight to provide excellent health care for all is too critically important to not work for progress on every avenue that remains open to us.  

The stakes are high. Communities across the U.S. face alarming health challenges: 

• White men account for nearly 70 percent of suicides in the U.S.  

• Hispanic/Latine men and women are almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with and die from liver cancer than their white counterparts.  

• Black mothers experience maternal mortality rates two to four times higher than white mothers.  

• American Indians and Alaska Natives have the lowest life expectancy at birth among all racial and ethnic groups in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  

• American Indian and Native American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, and Black people are roughly twice as likely as white people to die from heart disease. 

• Where you live matters as well. One in five Americans live in rural areas, and rural residents have higher rates of high blood pressure and risk of death from heart disease, cancer, unintentional injury, chronic lower respiratory disease and stroke than those living in urban areas.  

These challenges don’t just happen. They are created by harmful policies that consign people of color and people of low wealth to the most polluted neighborhoods, underperforming schools, limit access to care, create medical and food deserts, fail to regulate shoddy housing, disinvest in rural health care, gerrymander voting districts, and prevent economic upward mobility. These are known as the social and political determinants of health.  

While efforts are underway to reduce funding for Medicaid expansion, dismantle the Affordable Care Act, limit reproductive health access, and weaken public health protections, we are not powerless.  

The single best way to save lives is to ensure there are more doctors from the very communities that suffer health challenges. This avenue remains open to us. By diversifying the health care workforce, we can ensure everyone has access to the highest quality care from providers who understand them and from doctors with shared lived experience to their patients. The call to action is clear: empower the next generation of health care leaders from the very communities that suffer the worst health outcomes.  

If you envision a world, like National Medical Fellowships (NMF) does, where everyone – regardless of race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, and geography – can access affordable, culturally competent, high-quality health care, please join us. Here’s how: 

• Make a gift to NMF to support brilliant medical students who are motivated every day to fight health challenges in their communities. 

• Raise your voice when you see harmful public health legislation in your local community, state, or at the federal level. 

• Stand with health care providers when they are targeted with harassment, discrimination, or physical harm. 

• Reject attempts to gut the nation’s, your state’s, or your county’s public health infrastructure.  

• Share your resources and power with organizations like NMF who are on the front lines for health excellence.