LCHE produces its own weekly radio show, Today's Health Topics, hosted by Ms. Alma Stewart-Allen. The show features various interrelated health topics relevant to Louisiana.
LCHE's initiatives have also been covered by regional and local news outlets like BR Proud and the Louisiana Illuminator. Notable articles include the following:
#LA40by2030 Campaign
The 2020 America’s Health Rankings ranks Louisiana 50th in the United States. In response, LCHE has developed the LA40by2030 campaign to improve health outcomes and quality of life for children and families across the state. The goal of the campaign is to improve the state’s national ranking to 40th by the year 2030. LCHE recognizes that improving Louisiana’s health ranking by 2030 will require the participation of government officials, public healthcare professionals, and the general public. LCHE is inviting stakeholders to develop a health equity database and action platform and contribute to achieving #LA40by2030.
Annual Health Summit
LCHE leads an annual health summit with the goal of improving health in Louisiana through the lens of health equity and determinants of health. The summit is designed to engage a diverse array of stakeholders in better understanding rapdily changing conditions of health with the goal of informing policy and building partnerships for community health improvements. This goal of the summit is to inspire action on the state, regional and local levels, and to facilitate progress towards LA40by2030.
The 2023 health summit will focus on population heath, and women and children's health. The summit is also aligned with the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) state health improvement priorities: behavioral health, chronic disease, community safety, and maternal and child health.
Louisiana Resources and Educational Assessments for Children’s Health (LA REACH)
LA REACH is a pilot program to develop a holistic approach to improving school environments for teachers and students by decreasing instances of student disciplinary actions, violence, alternative school placement, increasing graduation rates, grade point averages, and standardized test scores. The program goals are to address the lack of awareness and resources for mental health, provide trauma-informed training to school personnel, and build stronger home and school relationships. The program strategy is to provide a safe and conducive environment for learning.
Office of Women's Health and Community Health (OHWHCH)
In 2022, LCHE’s organization and activism led to the creation of the first Louisiana office focused on women’s health. The Office of Women’s Health and Community Health (OWHCH) was established under a bill passed by the Louisiana Legislature on June 18, 2022. The office exists to improve women’s health outcomes and act as a coordinating agency and resources center for women’s health data and strategies.
The Wade Institute for Youth Equity
The Wade Institute for Youth Equity is a year-round program dedicated to pursuing youth equity in key quality indicators, and promoting community safety in communities across Louisiana. For more than a decade, the Louisiana Center for Health Equity has devised and implemented a holistic public health approach to adolescent health. This includes, but is not limited to, youth violence prevention, positive youth development, healthy living including sexual risk avoidance, and mental health wellness. The Institute aims to create a well-rounded and equipped student for positive decision making.
LCHE is dedicated to advancing health equity to improve the overall health and well-being of all Louisianans. Since its founding in 2010, LCHE has worked to eliminate health and healthcare disparities attributed to structural, institutional, or social disadvantages. LCHE educates, advises, and mobilizes in an effort to advance health equity by dismantling health disparities caused by poverty, lack of access to quality healthcare, and unhealthy environmental conditions. In recent years, LCHE’s agenda has centered around supporting the behavioral health needs of youth exposed to trauma and childhood adversity.
LCHE also provides opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to participate in experiential learning opportunties through internships and fellowships. Click here to learn more.
LCHE often collaborates with the following organizations: Louisiana Department of Health, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Southern University Law Center, Dillard University, and Louisiana State University (LSU), as well as national, state, and community-based organizations, such as the National Collaborative on Health Equity, League of Women Voters, March of Dimes), American Association of University Women (AAUW), National Congress of Black Women, among others. Interdisciplinary collaboration is talked about as an integral component of health equity advocacy. In her Career Pathways interview, founder and director Alma Stewart-Allen has highlighted the importance of bridging gaps between policy, medicine, social science, social services, business, and law.
LCHE also often works closely with high school and university students, including but not limited to the Louisiana Youth Advisory Council (LYAC). Youth play an integral role in LCHE’s research and advocacy initiatives, through which they acquire the leadership, research and advocacy skills necessary for advancing environmental justice and health equity (see LCHE programs).
LCHE acts on behalf of Louisianans who are most impacted by structural inequities. In 2020, ProPublica published an article highlighting the disparities in Covid-related deaths between Black and white patients treated by Oschner Health, the largest nonprofit, academic health system in Louisiana. The journal’s analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the local coroner’s office, found that patients that were Black were more likely to be sent home, and therefore also more likely to die at home. Families reported that Oschner staff pressured them into accepting hospice care. In response, the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus also called for an investigation of Oschner’s practices. However, the Louisiana Health Department responded by declaring that the complaint was outside their purview. Following this development and seeking more impactful systems-change, LCHE filed a civil rights complaint against Oschner with the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil rights. Results of the civil rights investigation are still pending.
LCHE is led by founder and director Ms. Alma Stewart Allen, a registered nurse, former career state civil servant, entrepreneur, and public health policy advocate. For decades, she has testified at legislative hearings, run advocacy campaigns, and emphasized the significance of social and political determinants of health. She led an advocacy campaign to improve access to healthcare coverage, which resulted in Louisiana becoming the first state in the deep south to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act in January 2016. Aiming to improve the state’s health rankings to 40th in the nation by the year 2030 (Louisiana currently ranks 46th), Ms. Stewart Allen continues her advocacy work by developing programs and initiatives aimed at improving health in Louisiana, particularly children’s mental health.
This film is meant to show the struggles of an ER waiting room from all sides. It shows the frustrations of patients waiting to be seen for hours, financial workers, social workers, and doctors struggling to see everyone in a timely manner. It also shows organizers tryign to sort everyone and move the patients around in ways that benefit all parties. Essentially, this documentary is highlighting the issues that exist in the ER because of lack of staff, beds, and overall means to take care of the large influx of patients.
This film shows live footage of interactions in the hospital as well as voice over narrations that highlight the mood and stress of the situation. They give some statistics, but the main point of this film is to show the stories of some patients and the doctors and staff to highlight their message. It has an emotional appeal in the sense that viewers can sympathize with and feel frustrated for all parties involved - not just the patients.
There are many people portrayed and mentioned in the film. They discuss issues within governments and insurance companies. They show patients without insurance struggling to get medication and care. As a result, they express issues with access to care and paying for hte care that they receive. They show doctors and the struggles they have with handling patients and those that come in with the ambulance. Nurses and other ER staff are shown as well. They show narratives of several patients in the waiting room and their experience once they do finally make it to a bed. All of these players have a lot of decisions to make, starting with the decision of the patient ot come to this public hospital (possibly because being turned away from others), and ending with a doctor's care and decision whether or not to release patients.
They are shown for a moment in which they bring in trauma patients, but are not a main player in this documentary.
I found the most compelling part of the film a portion where an elderly man needing dialysis swears and screams at one of the doctors that he's sick and tired of having to wait for dialysis. He says how annoying it is to come to this hospital and expresses frustrations with having to get dialysis at this particular hospital. He is frustrated to such an extent that he even asks the doctor to remove the catheter and let him die, stating that eveyrone dies so he doesn't care anymore if it's sooner rather than later. He's tired of waiting.