Acting Center Director, Derek Chapman, PhD, gave the keynote address to the American Hospital Association (AHA)’s National Health Equity Program kickoff learning lab on September 26th. Dr. Chapman serves as part of the National Advisory Committee for the AHA’s National Health Equity Program, a new initiative funded by the Aetna Foundation working to develop clinical-community partnerships and place-based projects to improve health and wellbeing for all.

The program’s inaugural cohort consists of ten AHA hospital teams, each made up of members of the hospital as well as the surrounding community. The cohort spent several days in Chicago for a learning lab kickoff in which the teams had the opportunity to engage with each other, meet partners who will be providing technical assistance throughout the year-long project, and hear from national experts on health equity and the social determinants of health.

Dr. Chapman’s keynote address highlighted the role that hospitals and health systems can take in addressing the social determinants of health. Much of his presentation focused on collaboration, as “health systems can have a much greater impact by leveraging resources from community partners to address the complex social needs of the populations they serve.”

Dr. Chapman also used his platform to excite the hospital teams about the work they were about to undertake. “The projects they are planning to address social determinants of health [are] critically important to improving population health,” said Dr. Chapman. “The work they are doing in the community or to address social determinants within their patient population has the potential to be more impactful to their patients’ health in the long term than their clinical services alone.”

Beyond completing their individual projects, the hospital teams will also be participating in outreach efforts, to share information about their projects, garner feedback from stakeholders, and to promote national programs aimed at addressing the social determinants of health.