Poverty & Academic Medicine Resources 

The AAMC promotes a culture of teaching and learning where individuals acknowledge and identify strategies to address racism in medicine and the broader community. Below are faculty resources to support anti-racist curriculum design and teaching practices in medical education. 

• Fee Assistance Program FAQs
• Feeding future doctors: Universities work to alleviate food insecurity among medical students | AAMC
• Applying to medical school can be daunting. Summer programs help prepare disadvantaged students | AAMC
• Food Insecurity on Three Dollars a Day
• Poverty in America Free Download 
• The doctor — and the financial coach – will see you now

Poor and In Poor Health

In the United States, discussion about how to improve health often turns to either access to care or health behaviors like smoking or diet. These things matter, but there are also many social and economic factors that compromise health and impair the ability to make healthful choices in the first place that should be considered.

Download Fact Sheet

AAMC Center For Health Justice

The AAMC Center For Health Justice sparks community-centered, multisector research, collaboration, and action to make the case for policies and practices that ensure all communities have an equal opportunity to thrive.

Engage the Health Justice Community

• Continue our work alongside AAMC CHARGE (the Collaborative for Health Equity: Act, Research, Generate Evidence), an interprofessional and cross-disciplinary group of health equity scholars and champions from across the United States.
• Collaborate with the Multisector Partner Group, where national leaders, local leaders from community-based organizations, and community organizers from 10 sectors representing the diverse social and political determinants of health convene to determine the center’s priorities and strategy.
• Convene experts, policymakers, and community members to examine health inequities data and act together to address these inequities. 
• Respond to requests for stakeholder engagement and provide important insight to federal agencies that work toward and fund health equity. 

Build Evidence and Share Expertise

• Conduct nationally representative opinion polling to learn how the public feels about health equity and justice.
• Produce original research and analysis to build support for policy and practice changes that have a systemic impact. 
• Provide funding for on-the-ground partnerships, evidence-building, and implementation of interventions for health equity.

Ease the Path to Health Equity

• Equip organizations both inside and outside of health care with the tools they need to become trustworthy partners to their communities.
• Guide institutions toward a deeper understanding of equity-focused, person-first language and narratives and why these choices matter. 
• Develop tools to help institutions and community organizations communicate with each other about their health equity work and form sustainable, effective, co-equal partnerships.

Community Engagement and Collaboration

The AAMC has curated this collection of resources describing why community engagement is necessary for promoting health equity. This section will be regularly updated with the latest resources, articles, and toolkits created and offered by the AAMC and others.

Here are a few resources that present arguments for the importance of community engagement to advance health equity and improve population health.