Black History Month event showcases the power of action in a community
UT Southwestern, Parkland leaders describe efforts to expand health care access in Redbird area
During this year’s annual Black History Month celebration, UT Southwestern and Parkland Health leaders described critical efforts to eliminate neighborhood- and race-based health care disparities, giving concrete examples of progress in the Redbird area of southern Dallas.
Health care leaders Fred Cerise, M.D., M.P.H., President and CEO of Parkland Health, and Ericka Walker Williams, M.D., Medical Director at UT Southwestern’s new RedBird outpatient location, talked about why they got involved with the redevelopment of the old RedBird Mall in that area. They two told moderator Shawna Nesbitt, M.D., M.S., UT Southwestern’s inaugural Vice President and Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer, about their institutions’ efforts to improve health equity and what future steps need to be taken.
Dr. Cerise described to about 150 gathered Feb. 15 for the South Campus event how developer Peter Brodsky, the force behind a comprehensive redevelopment called Reimagine RedBird, approached him early in RedBird’s planning phase. He called it an opportunity for Parkland to reach out to a community in southern Dallas – a section that includes Oak Cliff, DeSoto, Duncanville, Cedar Hill, Lancaster, and surrounding areas – that did not have convenient access to medical care. In response, in late 2021 Parkland opened its RedBird Health Center, later renaming it the C.V. Roman Health Center in honor of a prominent Black Dallas physician from the 1800s.
Meanwhile, Dr. Walker Williams, who lives in southern Dallas, joined numerous other UTSW executives, faculty members, and staff to embrace the redevelopment effort. When UT Southwestern Medical Center at RedBird opened last summer, she jumped at the chance to staff the new facility. UT Southwestern’s new regional health facility offers primary care, cardiology, oncology, diagnostic imaging such as MRIs and mammography, a laboratory, a retail pharmacy, as well as an infusion center for chemotherapy.
Although each facility has increased access to health care in southern Dallas, it is not enough to erase health care inequities, Dr. Cerise said. A large uninsured population still persists in both Dallas and Texas, he said, adding “being uninsured has bad implications for your health.”
Factors such as education, job opportunities, and housing stability can also affect health and longevity, he said. What’s more, the average life expectancy of an adult is 20-plus years lower in some areas of Dallas County. Those living in the southern Dallas ZIP code of 75215 have the lowest life expectancy, while those in ZIP code 75204, north of downtown, have the highest, according to a UTSW study published in 2019 by Sandi Pruitt, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Peter O’Donnell Jr. School of Public Health and Associate Director of Community Outreach, Engagement, and Equity in the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Large health institutions can have an impact by enhancing access to care, hiring and buying from the communities they serve, investing in them, and volunteering in local projects, Dr. Cerise said.
As UT Southwestern prepared to open at RedBird, Dr. Walker Williams said, staff reached out to the community to find out what people wanted. “The people said they wanted health care workers who look like them,” she said, adding, “Our health care workforce looks like the population.
“There’s a lot of mistrust in the Black community,” explained Dr. Walker Williams, referring to a history of medical mistreatment of Black people, such as in the 40-year Tuskegee syphilis study that began in 1932 in which Black men were studied for progression of the disease but denied effective care.
At UT Southwestern’s RedBird facility, Dr. Walker Williams said, “People feel, ‘Now I’m going to have someone listen to me.’” She told of how some patients will only get COVID-19 vaccines or boosters from her. “They’d wait until I had it in my arm,” Dr. Walker Williams said.
Dr. Walker Williams also spoke about a new specialty at UTSW’s RedBird location that aims to improve patients’ health – culinary medicine. Patients will undergo an extensive evaluation to determine what foods can improve their health, complete with cooking demonstrations to prepare healthful meals. With such efforts, Dr. Walker Williams said, life expectancy should go up in the Redbird area.
Dr. Nesbitt called the event a success. “I think people gained a better understanding of what’s happening at the local level – UT Southwestern’s engagement, Parkland’s engagement – in improving health equity in an area that is disadvantaged,” she said.
The event was hosted by the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the Office of Institutional Equity & Access and the African-American Employee Business Resource Group.
View images from the event below:
