The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is working to build a Culture of Health.
Since 1972, RWJF has supported research and programs to uncover the many factors that impact health, and enable people and communities to be as healthy as possible. Working alongside public health leaders, entrepreneurs, research scientists, policymakers and community leaders, the Foundation is committed to ensuring that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to achieve better health where we live, learn, work and play.
As both parents and pediatricians, RWJF President and CEO Richard Besser and Executive Vice President Julie Morita stress the need to redouble our efforts to keep children safe and offer three fundamental steps to mitigate the pandemic’s effects on children.
In politics today, language is often weaponized in an attempt to end the discussion and blunt any policy changes. We cannot let this happen with the concept of a more equitable nation, pens RWJF Executive Vice President Julie Morita. We need health equity in America in the same way that we need clean water, nutritious foods, safe streets and good schools.
President and CEO Richard Besser and Executive Vice President Julie Morita, like many people across the country, had questions before recently getting their first COVID-19 shots. They needed answers before rolling up their own sleeves and recommending COVID-19 vaccines to family and friends. We need to give every person in this country the space, and grace, to make up their minds. After all, they write, trust must be earned.
The American Rescue Plan Act provides hope for more than 100 million people, yet if we believe in an America in which everyone has opportunity and every person has equal value, our work is far from complete, pens RWJF President and CEO Richard Besser. Even if the pandemic were to end this year, the people for whom the legislation’s provisions are a lifeline still will be living in a nation steeped in inequities that cannot be eliminated with a single act of Congress, no matter how vast.
Dismantling structural racism must become America’s ultimate public health intervention. RWJF President and CEO Richard Besser highlights the need to rethink how the United States can address predictable challenges that arise in public health emergencies. During this pandemic and well before, some people suffer more than others simply because of the color of their skin, what they earn, and where they live.
Melissa Blair
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation media@rwjf.org or (609) 627-5937
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The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.
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