health equity now.
About Us
The Equity Studio, LLC is a consulting firm devoted to actualizing health equity in the here and now. The studio is led by Kristen Hobbs, an implementation epidemiologist and health equity champion. She brings nearly eight years of health equity research, evaluation, program development, implementation, workshop facilitation, quality improvement, and subject matter expertise to the studio. She completed her graduate studies at Saint Louis University in 2015 where she received her Master of Public Health degree in Epidemiology. Her undergraduate studies in Biology and Chemistry were completed in 2011 at Texas Woman’s University. She is certified in public health and has professional experience consulting and working for Susan G. Komen Headquarters, National Minority Quality Forum, McKesson, and Exact Sciences.
Mission: Reform health, social, and political systems via innovative health equity strategies to ensure that historically excluded populations have access to their highest quality of health.
Vision: A world where historically excluded communities are respected, believed, empowered, and given the highest quality of care in all the systems in which they engage.
We integrate creativity & truth to bring health equity to reality.
Important Definitions
Historically Excluded Communities: Communities who have been purposely, structurally, and systemically excluded from social, economic, political, and health systems. They have often been marginalized and minoritized based on the population groups with which they identify. These groups may be marginalized racial and ethnic populations, LGBTQIA populations, populations identifying as women/girls, senior citizens, military combat veterans, persons in certain geographic locations, persons living with cognitive, sensory, behavioral or physical disabilities, persons experiencing poverty and/or who are unhoused, persons convicted of felonies, and/or patients living with chronic illnesses.
Health Disparities: Differences, or gaps, in health outcomes and/or epidemiological indicators across subpopulations of people. Health disparities adversely affect minoritized groups of people.
Health Equity: Health equity is a principle which mandates that all people have the rights and access to high quality healthcare and health resources. This affords every person, especially historically excluded communities, the maximum opportunity to live their healthiest lives.
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To explain health equity further, one might consider the scenario detailing the difference between equality and equity below.
Imagine you encounter someone in a crowded restaurant and they tell you they’re buying you a pair of tennis shoes. Would you be excited? Would you be nervous? Would you be thinking “who are you?!” Let’s say you’re excited. Then they tell you that those shoes must be a size 13, narrow width, men’s shoes. You then raise an eyebrow and say you don’t wear a size 13 in men’s shoes, and that your feet aren’t narrow. Then they tell you the shoes are blue. You respond, “Thank you for the pair of shoes, but I won’t even be able to use them. They would be way too long and narrow. Plus, I hate the color blue. My shoe size is 8.5, wide women’s and my favorite color is yellow.”
Do you see what happened here? The giver assumed that everyone in the restaurant needed the same exact pair of shoes. Same size, style, width, and color. That is equality. Giving everyone the same thing without allowing them access to make the choices that are best for them.
Equity, then, is not giving everyone the same pair of shoes. It is giving everyone access to the pair of shoes that fits them and their specific needs at any given time for any given situation. A deeper understanding of equity, then, lends that your shoe needs may change over time and according to the situation. You may need a heel for work, running shoes for your marathon, or trainers for weight lifting. Health equity should function in a similar fashion where it ensures optimal access to healthcare tailored to the needs of a population and/or individual and should remove obstacles created by unjust and racist economic, social, political, and health systems. Thus, health equity mandates that no one is denied the possibility of being healthy for belonging to a historically excluded group of people.
