Primary Care’s Critical Role in Advancing Health Equity

Primary care provides a unique opportunity to improve health equity. Primary care is the most fair, efficient, and accessible way for all people to enter the health care system. Studies have linked it to improved population health and more equitable outcomes. Yet many efforts to strengthen primary care miss the opportunity to identify equity as a key goal, and primary care is often absent from conversations about advancing health equity.

Mathematica held a webinar on Tuesday, March 7, 2023, from noon to 1:30 p.m. ET to learn more about the evidence on primary care’s critical role in advancing health equity and listen to a discussion by primary care and health equity policy experts about opportunities across sectors to improve and invest in high-quality primary care that puts equity at the center.

Our speakers included the following:

• Sinsi Hernández-Cancio, Vice President for Health Justice, National Partnership for Women & Families
• Hoangmai (Mai) Pham, President and CEO, Institute for Exceptional Care
• Kathryn Phillips, Associate Director, Improving Access, California Health Care Foundation
• Diane Rittenhouse, Senior Fellow, Mathematica
• Judith Steinberg, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Resources

• Primary Care’s Essential Role in Advancing Health Equity for California