Brain Friends

5 Ways to Contribute to Health Equity

Dr. D. Seles Gadson and Angie Cauthorn Season 2 Episode 8

In this episode of Brain Friends, we discuss 5 ways everyone can contribute to health equity for Black people with aphasia. We give resources for caregivers to get compensated and encourage speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to support health literacy in clients.

1. Implicit Bias Training- to help practitioners recognize stereotypical beliefs that contribute to health inequities.

2. Workforce Diversity- may help clients with communication and participation in research by having practitioners who look like them.

3. Representation in Research- helps ensure generalization of findings and that all voices are included. http://www.aphasiaresource.org/ Also, how are researchers sharing clinical findings? How many researchers have collected data from participants, published the findings, and gone back to the participants to share their study results?

4. Health Literacy- helps individuals understand medical information to make an informed decision. It is important to encourage care partners and provide disability resources that compensate the caregiver  https://www.usa.gov/disability-caregiver

5. Patient Reported Outcomes- helps give people with aphasia a voice in therapy by sharing goals that are important to the individual. Patient-reported outcomes can be challenging to read and should be diversified with large print, pictures, audio versions, or available on assistive devices.