For Health Equity, We Must End Mass Incarceration.

This Viewpoint discusses the health harms to individuals and communities because of mass incarceration in the US and proposes interventions to ensure health equity for all individuals.

Ley Trans, liberum arbitrium / Transgender law, liberum arbitrium

La nueva ley sobre la igualdad de las personas trans y la garantía de derechos de las personas LGTBI (Ley 4/2023, de 28 de febrero) ha sido una ley discutida y criticada por algunos grupos de profesionales de la medicina que atienden a la población infantil. Las críticas desde el ámbito médico y pediátrico se pueden hacer siempre ante cualquier ley que consideremos que afecta a los derechos sanitarios de los menores. Lo que sucede es que algunas de esas críticas son sobre aspectos que no se recogen en la ley. En el siguiente artículo analizaremos lo que dice la ley, lo que dicen algunas asociaciones de profesionales y lo que dice la legislación sobre los derechos sanitarios del menor, con el fin de contribuir al debate de esos controvertidos aspectos de la ley (AU)

The new law on the equality of trans people and the guarantee of rights of LGTBI people (Law 4/2023, February 28th) has been discussed by some groups of medical professionals that have shown their disagreement.In relation to any law, criticism can be made from the medical or pediatric field; whenever it affects the rights of minors. However, criticisms, if they exist, should be made about what the law says, not about other aspects.In the following article we will analyze what the law says, what some professional associations say and what the legislation says about the health rights of minors, in order to contribute to the debate on these controversial aspects of the law. (AU)

A Policy Framework for the Growing Influence of Private Equity in Health Care Delivery.

This Viewpoint details how and why improved oversight of private equity acquisition of physician practices and hospitals is needed to mitigate the effects on health care costs, clinicians' jobs, and patients' access to care.

Antidiscrimination Laws as Essential Tools for Achieving LGBTQ+ Health Equity.

This Viewpoint discusses a pending US Supreme Court case to determine the extent to which people who identify as LGBTQ+ are protected under state antidiscrimination laws in the commercial marketplace.

Advancing Birth Equity in a Post-Dobbs US.

This Viewpoint discusses the US Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, describes how that decision threatens birth equity for some racial and social groups, and suggests a reproductive justice approach to address racial and social inequalities and ensure reproductive freedom and autonomy for all people.

Developing a Database of Structural Racism-Related State Laws for Health Equity Research and Practice in the United States.

OBJECTIVES: Although US state laws shape population health and health equity, few studies have examined how state laws affect the health of marginalized racial/ethnic groups (eg, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx populations) and racial/ethnic health inequities. A team of public health researchers and legal scholars with expertise in racial equity used systematic policy surveillance methods to develop a comprehensive database of state laws that are explicitly or implicitly related to structural racism, with the goal of evaluating their effect on health outcomes among marginalized racial/ethnic groups. METHODS: Legal scholars used primary and secondary sources to identify state laws related to structural racism pertaining to 10 legal domains and developed a coding scheme that assigned a numeric code representing a mutually exclusive category for each salient feature of each law using a subset of randomly selected states. Legal scholars systematically applied this coding scheme to laws in all 50 US states and the District of Columbia from 2010 through 2013. RESULTS: We identified 843 state laws linked to structural racism. Most states had in place laws that disproportionately discriminate against marginalized racial/ethnic groups and had not enacted laws that prevent the unjust treatment of individuals from marginalized racial/ethnic populations from 2010 to 2013. CONCLUSIONS: By providing comprehensive, detailed data on structural racism-related state laws in all 50 states and the District of Columbia over time, our database will provide public health researchers, social scientists, policy makers, and advocates with rigorous evidence to assess states' racial equity climates and evaluate and address their effect on racial/ethnic health inequities in the United States.

Navigating inequities: a roadmap out of the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed social inequities that rival biological inequities in disease exposure and severity. Merely identifying some inequities without understanding all of them can lead to harmful misrepresentations and deepening disparities. Applying an 'equity lens' to bring inequities into focus without a vision to extinguish them is short-sighted. Interventions to address inequities should be as diverse as the pluralistic populations experiencing them. We present the first validated equity framework applied to COVID-19 that sheds light on the full spectrum of health inequities, navigates their sources and intersections, and directs ethically just interventions. The Equity Matrix also provides a comprehensive map to guide surveillance and research in order to unveil epidemiological uncertainties of novel diseases like COVID-19, recognising that inequities may exist where evidence is currently insufficient. Successfully applied to vaccines in recent years, this tool has resulted in the development of clear, timely and transparent guidance with positive stakeholder feedback on its comprehensiveness, relevance and appropriateness. Informed by evidence and experience from other vaccine-preventable diseases, this Equity Matrix could be valuable to countries across the social gradient to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2 by abating the spread of inequities. In the race to SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, this urgently needed roadmap can effectively and efficiently steer global leadership towards equitable allocation with diverse strategies for diverse inequities. Such a roadmap has been absent from discussions on managing the COVID-19 pandemic, and is critical for our passage out of it.