A New Perspective on Health Equity

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

This post originally appeared on Health Shift, Dr. Alice Burron’s Substack.

It’s time for a whole-person approach.

Fundamentally and inarguably, a whole-person health approach is an essential component in addressing health equity. But currently, strategies typically focus on one aspect of health, such as disease management, where the primary focus is medication adherence and lifestyle behaviors, such as nutrition and physical activity.

This current approach leads to missing out on other less obvious critical components contributing to the problem, such as culture, desires, biases, and other behavior drivers.

This often means less consideration of other lesser-known intervention options, such as acupuncture, massage, and behavioral therapy. This standard approach also misses an opportunity for individuals to be exposed to the potential benefit of self-care, such as through stretching and meditation.

A whole-person approach to health also opens the door to lesser-known methods for health and healing, such as biofeedback, journaling, and self-awareness, while concurrently allowing for other health dimensions to be addressed, such as financial wellness or spiritual health.

This integrative, whole-person approach can give underserved populations a fresh perspective on available options instead of focusing on what is unaffordable or inaccessible. No-cost or low-cost intervention options can begin to fill in gaps where medical care may not be feasible or helpful. Although some of these interventions may not provide immediate relief, they may offer more profound insight into the root cause of health issues, if not just create a better environment for overall health and healing.

It's time for a multi-component approach to health equity, where many potential avenues for health and healing are addressed, from helping individuals find their "why" they would want to improve their health to giving them the right decision-making tools to do so.