Today, AOF sent a letter to Governor Mike DeWine on the 1-Year anniversary of the release of the Minority Health Strike Force Blueprint asking for transparency, accountability and robust community involvement. Read our letter below:
Governor DeWine:
Around this time last year, our coalition sent you a letter thank you for the tremendous work done by the Minority Health Task Force and your administration in laying a foundation for the deeply meaningful work of moving Ohio to a place of racial equity. The COVID-19 Minority Health Strike Force Blueprint and Ohio’s Executive Response: A Plan of Action to Advance Equity are significant documents and represent a meaningful opportunity for racial equity and antiracist initiatives.
We are a year and a half into this pandemic and minority communities continue to experience disparate impacts of the health and economic crisis as well as poorer overall health outcomes.
Vaccine Access: In Ohio, only 9 percent of the vaccinated population is Black, while 14.3 percent of Ohio’s overall population is Black.
Infant Mortality: In Ohio, infant mortality rates for Black babies are 2.8 times higher than infant mortality rates for white babies.
Racism impacts care: Black Ohioans are 5.6 times more likely to be treated worse in healthcare settings and treatment due to their race.
Implementing the Blueprint recommendations and your Executive Action Plan would create a profound change in the lives of black and brown people across Ohio. Though we recognize and applaud a number of funding initiatives and programs included in the recently passed state budget bill, our member organizations and others who have pledged to work with black and brown community members, along with you and Ohio’s leaders to dismantle racism to advance health equity, have not received any meaningful update or report on progress made toward Blueprint recommendations or your Executive Action Plan.
Specifically, three commitments from your Executive Action Plan are critical for long term change and addressing racial inequities and disparities that existed long before the Coronavirus crisis.
Commitment #6: Approach equity holistically. Ohio must use a deliberate and comprehensive lens through which social determinants of health are analyzed for change. #6 from the Executive Response is a powerful frame and will well serve all of Ohio’s residents. A tool for analyzing the impact of rules on health and equity was developed under the leadership of the Ohio Public Health Association and is another excellent place to start applying an equity lens.
Commitments #8 and #10 (Measure progress against widely accepted benchmarks and standards and ensure all Ohioans have the ability to connect with and understand state content, programs, policy and data, respectively) are important corollaries to Commitment #6. We believe transparency and public accountability are critically necessary components that cannot be meaningful or effective without state-level data and information stratified by race, ethnicity, and language.
We urge two additions to your approach moving forward. First, the community impacted, black and brown people, must be fully engaged and empowered in the initiatives to dismantle racism and create equity. This should be reflected in the Governor’s Equity Advisory Board AND in the work of Ohio agency’s through regular, ongoing engagement of affected members of the community. Second, hold monthly public meetings updating your progress on equity; annual tracking and reporting as identified in the Blueprint is wholly inadequate for an issue that is Ohio’s second pandemic. The people of Ohio have suffered the consequences of racism for too long, action can’t wait.
We were encouraged by the release of your Executive Response and your Cabinet’s commitment to each day take swift and continual actions that result in an Ohio that we can be proud of—one that every Ohioan deserves. A year later, there has been little public progress towards these combined 44 goals. Advocates for Ohio’s Future (AOF) and our member organizations are asking for transparency, accountability and robust community involvement moving forward.
We endeavor to be partners in your racial equity and antiracist initiatives and stand ready to support you in whatever way we can.
Sincerely,
Kelsey Bergfeld
Director
Cc: Director Ursel McElroy, Ohio Department of Aging
Director Alisha Nelson, RecoveryOhio
Director Angela Dawson, Ohio Commission on Minority Health
Jamie Carmichael, Ohio Department of Health
Jennifer Adair, Ohio Department of Administrative Services
Ohio House of Representatives Majority and Minority Leadership
Ohio Senate Majority and Minority Leadership
Access a PDF of our letter HERE.