Equity in Health Care: What Does It Mean to Physicians?

Sixty percent of Memphis is African American. If you are an African American and live in Memphis, you are three to five times more likely to have your leg amputated due to complications from diabetes than if you are white. On average, African American patients are hospitalized for a heart attack nine years earlier than white patients and are hospitalized for heart failure 15 years earlier. These startling health inequalities and more are contained in Healthy Memphis Common Table’s (HMCT) Health Equity Report, the first of its kind in our region.