Investing in Healthier Communities

Academic medical centers play a critical role in creating and sustaining healthy communities. In addition to providing cutting-edge patient care, these institutions are vital to protecting public health, preventing illness and diseases, preparing for and responding to emergencies, and ensuring all communities have access to the high-quality care they need to thrive. Teaching hospitals serve at the crossroads of community health, health equity, and population health and are actively working to prevent and address persistent public health challenges, such as maternal mortality, substance use disorders, and mental health concerns.

• Addressing Barriers to Health Care Access
• Protecting Public Health
• Preparing for Emergencies

Medical schools and teaching hospitals continuously work across their missions by collaborating with communities to ensure all people have an equal opportunity to thrive. As pioneers in research and clinical best practices, these institutions create the scientific and research-based evidence that makes the case for policies, partnerships, and practices that facilitate health equity. They also help improve health outcomes for communities most impacted by access barriers by training learners, researchers, and providers to identify bias; adjusting for social risk factors in screening, referral, and payment; and promoting initiatives to increase diversity in clinical trials.

As anchor institutions, many academic medical centers advocate for federal, state, local, and community partnerships to address social factors that affect health, such as affordable housing, transportation, access to healthy food, job security, economic inequities, and environmental health.

Academic medical centers rely on data to carry out their important work. Ensuring these institutions are prepared to respond to any public health crisis and address associated health implications requires foundational data to identify communities that are disproportionally at greater risk than those communities that are faring better. Beyond sociodemographic data, they need standardized, valid, inclusive data collection on the social needs and social determinants most likely to correlate with increased exposure, susceptibility, and severity of illness and infectious disease.

Resources

• AAMC Letter of Endorsement for the Strengthening Pathways to Health Professions Act
• AAMC-led HPNEC Letter Urging Highest Possible Funding for HRSA Title VII, VIII Programs
• AAMC Comments to NIH on NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Sexual and Gender Minority Health Research
• AAMC Endorses the Medical Student Education Authorization Act
• From Believing to Becoming: How Shared Stewardship Cultivates Healthy, Thriving Communities
• AAMC Learning Series on Advancing Health Equity Through Telehealth

To operate most optimally, the nation’s health care system — including teaching hospitals and their affiliated medical school faculty — requires a strong public health infrastructure. Decades of underfunding at the national, state, and local levels, however, have strained foundational public health capabilities, as looming and ongoing threats far outpace available resources. Academic medical centers are actively working to prevent and address persistent public health challenges, such as gun violence, maternal mortality, substance use disorders, and mental health concerns. Our facilities must also maintain a strong and prepared public health system to remain competitive with other countries and to prevent potential health-related attacks.

Resources

• Group Letter Opposing FY 2025 Funding Cuts to CDC
• AAMC Response to Sen. Cassidy’s RFI on CDC
• Group Letter Urging Senate and House Committees on Appropriations to Support Robust Funding for Community Violence Intervention Initiative at the Centers for Disease Control
• White House, Senate, and House Sign-on Letters of Support for Extending Telehealth Prescribing
• AAMC Letter of Support for Closing Substance Use Care Gap Act
• Group Letter in Support of Prevention and Public Health Fund
• AAMC Endorses Public Health Infrastructure Saves Lives Act
• Group Letter Supporting Robust Funding for Gun Violence Prevention Research
• White House Announces Executive Actions Enhancing Gun Violence Prevention
• Surgeon General Declares Firearm Violence a Public Health Crisis

Teaching hospitals and their faculty physicians and staffs are critical to the U.S. health care system’s ability to respond to natural and human-induced disasters and other emergencies. As they demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic, academic medical centers have decades of experience in mobilizing resources during times of crisis and often lead regional responses in collaboration with their state and local health departments, regional emergency management systems, and community partners.

Maintaining emergency preparedness and mounting a robust response require a strong commitment to programs under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. The most effective preparedness strategy also requires ongoing, stable financial support for the nation’s core public health and health care infrastructures, including academic medical centers.

Resources

• Group Letter Urging Congressional Leadership to Reauthorize PAHPA

• Group Letter Supporting Robust Funding for CDC Advanced Molecular Detection Program

• Group Letter Protecting from Recissions to COVID Relief Funds at CDC