The Health Disparities Podcast

Mitigating the unintended consequences of health policy.

Dr. Jannifer Harper welcomes rural health and legislative affairs expert Bill Finerfrock, and Root Cause Coalition Director Tom Dorney, who previously served as Senior Policy Advisor to Congressman John Lewis.

Value-based payments: a health economics perspective.

Dr. Mary O’Connor hosts a discussion about the potentially detrimental impact of value-based care models on vulnerable populations, and how the safety-net hospitals that serve these patients are further strained, particularly in rural and inner-city areas.

Dr. O’Connor hosts panel discussing how the perception of risk in surgery can widen health disparities.

Risk is an intrinsic part of medical decision making. Every drug and every procedure must justify their benefit relative to any risks involved, so healthcare providers are very conscious of these risks and outcomes.

Educators discuss why more Hispanics should enter the healthcare workforce. Part 2, featuring Dr. Sherry Segura.

Dr. Sherry Segura continues our exploration of Hispanic education and workforce diversity. Dr. Segura is CEO of the Foundation for Hispanic Education in San Jose, California, where she is deeply involved in community efforts to ensure high quality and innovative educational services are available to all students.

Educators discuss how more Hispanics can enter the healthcare workforce. Part 1, featuring Ed Alvarez.

Ed Alvarez is President at the Latino Education Advancement Foundation in the San Francisco bay area, collaborating with other experienced nonprofits in developing initiatives focusing on college and career pathways, college persistence and completion.

Perspectives on health disparities through an epidemiology lens. Featuring Dr. Leigh Callahan.

Dr. Leigh Callahan is Professor of Medicine & OAAA. As an epidemiologist, Dr. Callahan seeks to understand how outcomes of osteoarthritis are influenced by factors such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, location, and social determinants of health (such as socioeconomic status).

Are rural health disparities being widened by bundled payments? Featuring Donna Kurek.

When healthcare quality management expert Donna Kurek made the switch to a more rural hospital system, she realized that there exists a whole different set of social determinants to consider in Appalachia, especially in the context of bundled payments.

Physician Assistants have an increasingly important role in healthcare. Featuring Klarisse Mathis.

Physician Assistants are a relatively new specialty created in response to the shortage of primary care physicians in rural areas, and the PA profession is now well established with over 100,000 graduates of accredited PA programs.

Safety net hospitals are crucial, but closures are making healthcare less universal. Featuring Dr. Eric Santos.

Orthopedist Dr. Eric Santos sees a diverse range of patients in his two Texas practices in Corpus Christi and McAllen, which have very different patient populations. He works hard to provide culturally competent healthcare services to his Hispanic patients, which includes providing consultations in both Spanish and English.

How Nurse Practitioners drive health equity through vital rural and frontier healthcare. With Wesley Davis and Cristina Gonzalez.

Rural Wyoming is a beautiful place to live, but those wide-open spaces on the frontier create a number of health disparities, with the presence of Native American reservations, COVID-19, and hospital closures adding more complexity.