Senior Fellow
Health Leads
FOCUS
We need individuals pushing for an equitable health care system from both within and outside. Most of my experience is inside the health care system working with organizations like Kaiser Permanente. Now I am working outside of the system with Health Leads to advance the cause of addressing basic social needs as a standard part of care delivery. Integrating social needs into care delivery allows us not only to create a more structural and culturally competent way of delivering health care but also to gather data that will allow us to develop approaches to addressing community health. Tackling the issues of community health will allow us also to implement necessary policy changes that target the root causes of health inequities.
STRATEGIC INITIATIVE: Reclaiming Imago Dei (I.D.) Project to Capture Intergenerational Learning of Black People Striving for Liberation
Reclaiming I.D. is a project that aims to promote and capture an intergenerational dialogue between black people in the approaches (both past and present) developed and deployed by black people to liberate themselves from systemic racism and injustice. Although a historically oppressed group in this country, black people continue to progress to advocate and push for full access to liberation in the United States. As each generation continues to understand the extensive effects of slavery and legal segregation, black people are seeking to advocate for full freedoms in all institutions, ranging from education to criminal justice to finance. The demolition of systemic oppression requires understanding lessons from past and present, and that knowledge must be documented and passed on. The advocates of today must learn from the advocates of the past, and the advocates of the past should be connected with the advocacy of today.
MORE ABOUT ARTAIR
I am the epitome of the small-town guy living in the big city. Growing up directly exposed to rural health issues and now living in one of our country’s largest cities, I directly see how social determinants of health and systemic inequities affect the lives of individuals living in both rural and urban environments. Based on this exposure, I have had various roles in health policy and hospital operations to advance the cause of integrating basic social needs into health care delivery.
Click here to watch Artair’s Legacy Project video.