Behind In Full Health — Why Now, Who’s Who, and What’s Next

Behind every new initiative, behind every ounce of radical change, are the individuals who work tirelessly to make it possible. For the In Full Health initiative, this is a collaborative team of experts in the field of health innovation coming together to call for — and create — something new.

Initially sparked by the American Medical Association’s strategic plan to embed racial justice and advance health equity, In Full Health seeks to provide a framework for shared understanding and a community for stakeholders committed to learning and centering equity within their health innovation investment, development, and purchasing efforts.

Together, the In Full Health Learning & Action Community to Advance Equitable Health Innovation is working towards making equitable health innovation the norm.

Here’s how we got here.

The Current State of Inequity in Health Innovation

Despite decades of increasing investment in health innovation, the U.S. continues to experience worse health than other high-income nations and persistent inequity.

This is particularly true among Black, Latinx, Indigenous, People of Color, and women who comprise approximately 70% of our population and hold an estimated 80% of purchasing power.

The resulting market of health care products and services is failing to drive a meaningful improvement in our overall national health outcomes — and especially in meeting the needs of underrepresented communities

This reality fuels the In Full Health initiative and our work every day. By investing in solutions created by, with, and for communities who have been sidelined from health innovation resourcing, we stand to make measurable progress towards becoming a global leader in health and well-being.

But if we hope to improve the health of our nation on a global scale, we must aim much higher than merely closing gaps —  we must invest in a radical reimagination of health and well-being led by those who have been under-resourced and excluded.

A Brighter Future — The Principles for Equitable Health Innovation

When it comes to systemic change, you need a strong foundation. For the In Full Health initiative, this foundation is The Principles For Equitable Health Innovation.

These principles act as a guiding force in our work and unify our community in a shared understanding of the current problem — and a potential path forward.

You can’t just use the same innovations and the same improvements that you’ve used for everyone and apply that to specific populations and hope it works. Hope is not a strategy. What we need to do is actually look at the specific marginalized population that we’re talking about, look at the evidence and say, “What are specific interventions that can work for them?” Then, we have to design those interventions — often with those marginalized populations — so that it’s most impactful.

Dr. Shantanu Nundy, MD, MBA

Chief Medical Officer, Accolade | Author, Care After Covid: What the Pandemic Revealed is Broken in Healthcare and How to Reinvent It | Lecturer In Health Policy, George Washington University Milken Institute For Public Health | Primary Care Physician | Member, AMA External Equity & Innovation Advisory Group

This initial set of principles was co-developed by the AMA Center for Health Equity, the AMA’s External Equity & Innovation Advisory Group, The Greystone Group, and input from internal AMA innovation and equity stakeholders and more than 30 leaders of organizations working at the intersection of health equity and health innovation.

With the support and input from so many invested parties, these principles represent a wide range of experiences and expertise. But that doesn’t mean they’re finished — that’s where our Learning & Action Community comes in.

We recognize there are still opportunities to define and refine our work. We know that nothing is set in stone, and we seek to bring new perspectives into our thought processes at every step of the way.

We call on our Learning & Action Community to live, enact, and challenge these principles — helping us to further develop and iterate upon them.

In the long run, the fundamental legacy [of the In Full Health initiative] will be answering the question “What are the outcomes?” What are the outcomes we’re seeing across populations who have historically been marginalized, who have been left out, and who haven’t been considered in previous design processes?

Dr. Monique Smith, MD, MSc

Founding Director, Health DesignED | Emergency Physician, Grady Memorial Hospital | Member, AMA External Equity & Innovation Advisory Group

The Principles v.1

1. Dismantling structural racism, sexism, and bias in health innovation resource allocation begins with organizational self-assessment.
2. Impact on health equity is a fundamental metric that should be used in assessing the value created by all health innovations.
3. Greater investment is needed in health innovations developed specifically to improve health in and/or eliminate inequities experienced by historically marginalized communities, with resources and support prioritized for innovators designing from within these communities.
4. More health innovation investment models should support asset ownership and wealth development within historically marginalized communities.
5. While health innovation funders, solution developers, and customers have a significant opportunity for impact at the organizational level, we need industry influencers to engage in addressing systems-level barriers and needs.

We invite you to join us in imagining a future in which every person in our country is in full health — a future in which all of us are seen, heard, honored, valued, treated, and cared for in full.

It’s important for the health innovation ecosystem to come together for many reasons. It’s probably best said in the words of an ancient African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We who are committed to this want to go far, and so we’re committed to going together.

Dr. Chris Gibbons, MD, MPH

Founder and CEO, The Greystone Group | Chief Health Innovation Adviser, Federal Communications Commission’s Connect2Health Task Force | Member, AMA External Equity & Innovation Advisory Group

Join Us In Creating a More Equitable Health Care Future

We invite all those who fund, develop, purchase, and influence the ecosystem of health solutions to join us in advancing equitable health innovation investment and resource allocation.

Through our Learning & Action Community, we’ll provide access to experts, mentors, resources, and tools. We’ll also facilitate space for community members to share lessons learned and challenges with each other, and to identify opportunities for collective action and policy change with systems influencers.