Advancing Health Equity for All
On the Front Lines of Justice in New Orleans
This is an open access publication, available online and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
How place, history, and community power shape health—and our future.
Health Equity for All is a book of essays that tell the story of New Orleans to illuminate a broader truth: health is shaped not only by care, but by place, history, and the social and political infrastructure that offer—or deny—opportunity.
Through narratives spanning music, the built environment, climate, and community action, the book presents New Orleans as a dynamic, pluralistic city where the same forces that have produced deep inequities can also be harnessed to create thriving communities defined by justice.
The essays ground health equity in lived experience—showing how culture, creativity, and local leadership can inform more effective and inclusive approaches to collective wellbeing.
The book offers a clear-eyed view of what it takes to build systems that advance health equity at scale. The contributors offer practical pathways, from community-led efforts to transform trauma into resilience, to rethinking clinical practice, and to advancing more inclusive and actionable research.
Together, these perspectives make the case that achieving health equity requires stronger partnerships, more responsive institutions, and a sustained commitment to aligning power, knowledge, and resources to meet the real-life needs of communities.
This book is organized in three sections:
“New Orleans Jazz as Metaphor” highlights the city’s musical legacy and describes its link to American democracy, the quest for freedom, and the struggle to build a more just world. Through musical and historical references, the chapter conveys the creativity, joy, struggles, possibilities, and inclusivity that are synonymous with jazz, making the music a powerful metaphor for health equity.
“The Built Environment and Health: Partnering in New Orleans” The impact of the built environment on health and well-being is well documented. The chapter shares multi-sector partnerships that respond to local needs, and embrace the idea of community power. There is a growing understanding in New Orleans that everyone has a right to help shape where they live, even as the climate crisis grows ever more threatening.
“Gulf Coast Citizens Take On the Climate Crisis” dives deeper into the climate crisis’s influence on health, health equity, and the ability to thrive. Climate change as a threat multiplier. The impact of climate injustice and environmental crises on water equity, housing, economic opportunities, and health equity highlights the difference between “living” and “thriving.”
“Confronting Trauma to Change a Community’s Health Trajectory” looks at two very different communities that have used the power rooted in historical trauma to confront significant health challenges. In one account, Indigenous people draw on lessons from their ancestors’ experiences to fuel their resolve to improve tribal health today. In another, HIV/AIDS activists recommit themselves to ending an epidemic that was plagued with stigma and discrimination. Both stories underscore the capacity of united communities to redirect past trauma to positive ends.
“Harnessing Local Power” illustrates how activists in Austin and Louisiana mobilized low-income residents to exercise their power in the face of daunting obstacles. “How we did it” examples—approaches that forced the city of Austin, Texas, to revise police union
contracts and secure access to housing and transportation services, and strategies that upended election outcomes in Louisiana—offer ideas that others can adapt. The chapter concludes with activists’ reflections on self care and the joy that comes from achieving power in partnership with others.
“The Complex Role of Race in Clinical Decision-making” opens with a look at the significance of the Human Genome Project, which has exposed the myth that there is a genetic basis for race and made explicit the impact of racism on health disparities. The authors focus on kidney disease and introduce the promise of precision medicine tailored to individuals, not racial groups.
“Leveraging Medicaid to Promote Equity” As the largest single health insurer in the country, Medicaid has not reached its full potential because of structural racism and other discriminatory acts. The chapter introduces a “Framework for Health Equity” developed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the multi-part state-level efforts to promote equity.
“Innovative Research Approaches to Further Health Equity” To achieve health equity, we need better science. The chapter introduces the RWJF and Tulane School of Public Health project, “Partners for Advancing Health Equity (P4HE).” The program is designed to foster collaboration, innovation, and knowledge sharing in pursuit of actionable evidence that creates better health and well being for all. This could be a model for the future of research.
About the Editors
Alonzo L. Plough, PhD, MPH, VP, Research-Evaluation-Learning and Chief Science Officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Thomas A. LaVeist, PhD, Dean and Weatherhead Presidential Chair in Health Equity, Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University.
Shannon Antoine-Hardy, DrPH, Assistant Professor of Public Health, School of Population & Health Sciences, Dillard University
Jennifer L. Avegno, MD, MA, Director, New Orleans Health Department and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Louisiana State University, New Orleans
Vence L. Bonham, JD, Associate Investigator, Social and Behavioral Research Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health
Margot Brown, ScD, Senior Vice President, Justice and Equity, The Environmental Defense Fund
Gail Christopher, DN, Executive Director, National Collaborative for Health Equity
João Paulo Connolly, Organizing Director, Austin Justice Coalition
Devin Davis, MA, Director of Political Operations, Voters Organized to Educate (New Orleans)
Jessica A. Dandridge, MA, Executive Director, the Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans
Jeffery U. Darensbourg, PhD, writer, poet, activist, fellow for the Center of Louisiana Studies, University of Louisiana, member of the Atakapa-Ishak Nation
Julia Kumari Drapkin, MS, CEO and Founder, ISeeChange
Dasjon Jordan, MS, Executive Director, Broad Community Connections
S. Amanda Dumas, MD, MSc, FAAP, Associate Medical Director, Bureau of Health Services Financing (Medicaid), Louisiana Department of Health, and Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Louisiana State University
Chris Harris, Policy Director, Austin Justice Coalition
Irene Headen, PhD, MS, Assistant Professor of Black Health, Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health
Adrienne Hollis, PhD, JD, Vice President, Environmental Justice, Climate, Community Revitalization, National Wildlife Federation
Derek Kauneckis, PhD, Senior Science Advisor, ISeeChange
Emilie Taylor Welty, AIA, MArch, Professor of Practice and Director of Architecture, Tulane University School of Architecture, and Assistant Director, Design/Build, The Albert and Tina Small Center for Collaborative Design
Thomas A. LaVeist, PhD, Dean and Weatherhead Chair, Tulane University Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Harold W. Neighbors, PhD, Senior Advisor for Public Health Research and Training, Tulane University Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine; Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health, and Program for Research on Black Americans, University of Michigan
Gabriel Maldonado, MBA, CEO, TruEvolution
Vernice Miller-Travis, Executive Vice President, Metropolitan Group
Chas Moore, Executive Director, Austin Justice Coalition
Alonzo L. Plough, PhD, MA, MPH, Vice President, Research-Evaluation-Learning, and Chief Science Officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Neil R. Powe, MD, MPH, MBA, Chief of Medicine, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center; Constance B. Wofsy Distinguished Professor and Vice-Chair of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
John Sabo, PhD, Director, ByWater Institute, Tulane University
Kristefer Stojanovski, PhD, MPH, Research Assistant Professor, Tulane University Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine; Research Director, Partners for Advancing Health Equity
Katherine Theall, PhD, Professor, Tulane University Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Ann Yoachim, MPH, Director, The Albert and Tina Small Center for Collaborative Design, and Professor of Practice, Tulane University School of Architecture
Karina L. Walters, PhD, MSW, Director, Tribal Health Research Office, National Institutes of Health; Former Professor, Co-director, and Principal Investigator, Indigenous Wellness Research Institute at the University of Washington
Michael G. White, PhD, Xavier University of Louisiana, jazz clarinetist, Founder of The Original Liberty Jazz Band
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