Health Equity and Social Justice

The Paso del Norte region is experiencing an unprecedented public health challenge – over the past three years, more than 8,000 individuals were murdered in Ciudad Juárez.

The link between housing and health is well known and well established. Efforts to improve public health through housing improvements go back to the origins of the public health movement.

There is no question that health reform is crucial. To attain true health reform, however, we need to focus on keeping Americans healthier in the first place and not just treating them after they become sick. If we want to improve the health of the communities we serve, of an entire state, or of the entire nation, we need to act upon the fact that our health is shaped far more by the places we live, learn, work, and play than by what happens in clinics and hospitals (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation 2008).