On June 19th of every year, we commemorate the liberation of enslaved individuals in the United States. In the last hundred years, the healthcare field has made great strides in innovation, yet many still receive poor and unequal care. Compared to their white counterparts in the United States, people of color have decreased access to innovative health treatments and standard care¹. Despite advancements in technology and science, patients of color are still more likely to have their pain taken less seriously and less likely to have their pain medically recorded accurately. Ultimately, patients of color are less likely to get the best quality pain management treatments².
The inequity of care that patients of color receive cannot be overstated. In light of this, we want to share our commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion within Mission: Cure. We are dedicated to learn, listen, and act against systemic inequalities that plague the healthcare space. Fundamentally, we believe that all patients deserve access to high-quality medical care.
Below we’ve listed our goals in regards to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) for the next year.
Reflect on and Work Against Systemic Racism
We are committed to educating ourselves about systemic racism and raise awareness on our platforms.
- We acknowledge that the first step in working against systemic racism within and outside our organization is to inform and educate ourselves.
- In consultancy with Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), we will plan social media campaigns to raise awareness on systemic racism in the medical space.
- We will use our reach on social media platforms to start conversations and point to systemic racism and issues affecting pancreatitis patients in particular.
Diversify our Patient Community
We are committed to actively working on expanding our reach within marginalized communities.
- As a first step, we will analyse our social media data to evaluate which patient groups are underrepresented. We will then create and execute plans on how to include these groups.
- To increase representation on our channels, we will ensure that the images we use show Black, indigenous and people of color.
- Corporations with Black, indigenous and people of color patients, communities and doctors, are especially valuable to us.
- We will interview pancreatitis patients of color on their priorities regarding advocacy, care and cure development. These insights will help us understand their experiences and needs and improve our DEI efforts.
Increase Language Inclusivity
We are committed to expanding our audience by alleviating language barriers for those who do not speak English.
While most of our content and resources are in English, we have translated several of our webpages to Spanish and Arabic. We recognize that we still have a long way to go to ensure the inclusion of as many patients as possible.
- We will continue translating our webpages and materials to different languages. We are prepared to publish content in Hebrew and German by the end of the summer.
- We are working on making our website more user friendly so our audience can easily locate resources in different languages.
Improve Equity and Accessibility for People with Disabilities
We are committed to taking steps to ensuring the accessibility of our services for people with disabilities.
- We will translate key content and resources into Easy-to-Read Language.
- To further the inclusion of people with vision impairment or vision loss, we will pay special attention that the content of our webinars is understandable without seeing the slides. Moreover, we will begin uploading audio recordings of webinars.
- To ensure the readability of our content, we will experiment with using bigger font sizes.
- We will increase the representation of people with disabilities in the pictures we use on our social media accounts and webpages.
We will convene regularly to discuss the progress and implementation of these commitments. Additionally, we will connect and consult with other non-profits and companies to exchange practices regarding diversity, equity and inclusion. We believe we need professional help to achieve our DEI goals and are in the process of selecting a consulting group that works for our unique needs as a small nonprofit in the rare disease and healthcare space.
¹Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care; Smedley BD, Stith AY, Nelson AR, editors. Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2003. RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISPARITIES IN DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT: A REVIEW OF THE EVIDENCE AND A CONSIDERATION OF CAUSES. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK220337/
²Hoffman, Kelly M et al. “Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America vol. 113,16 (2016): 4296-301. doi:10.1073/pnas.1516047113