AHIP18: Health leaders tie socioeconomic disparity, personal responsibility to preventable diseases (Fierce Healthcare)

Thursday Jun 21st, 2018

As politicians and healthcare experts try to get a handle on healthcare costs and chronic disease, they may be overlooking some major factors.

Much more can be done to reduce preventable diseases, including incentivizing personal responsibility and addressing socioeconomic disparity, panelists said at the 2018 AHIP Institute & Expo in San Diego.

Leana Wen, commissioner of health for the city of Baltimore, turned the conversation to socioeconomic disparities, and how they can lead to preventable diseases. "

In Baltimore, one in three African Americans live in a food desert," she said. "How can we tell them to eat better when the closest food to them is junk food? If you have to take two buses to get healthy food, that is something we should fix."

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