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EDITOR'S CHOICE |
Center for Community Health Partnerships, Columbia University
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Health and health care are family matters. Disease and illness affect not just individuals, but entire families. Caregiving, with all its particular stresses and fulfilling joys, is still the primary responsibility of families. The strength of our communities depends on the health, strength, and well-being of our families. Ensuring affordable access to quality health care for families is therefore a public health priority.
What does it take to provide quality health care to families? For immigrant families such as mine, it takes knowledge, resources, skills, connections, and good fortune. Thankfully, my family has been lucky. Through the years, we’ve been able to acquire the financial resources and other support needed to access quality health care. But for increasing numbers of immigrant and native-born families alike, this is not the case. Instead, health care systems loom as complicated mazes that are tricky—if not impossible—to navigate.
This month’s lead editorial by Deborah Zahn and her colleagues at Asian Health Services and La Clinica de La Raza in Oakland, Calif, focuses attention on one community’s efforts to reform its health care system to meet the needs of families as they are and where they are. Given their understanding of health as a family issue, these authors designed health care systems that acknowledge each family member and take into account social support systems and family decisionmaking.
The research and practice articles featured in this issue of the Journal reach across the life span and touch on just a few of the myriad factors that shape family health, including alcohol and tobacco use, homelessness, and domestic violence. The findings reported here are crucial in helping practitioners and policymakers adequately meet the needs of today’s families. Equally important is the research in this issue on caregiving and neighborhood environments. To be effective public health researchers and practitioners, we need to better understand the challenges, needs, and assets of families as their structures change and as our overall population both ages and becomes more diverse.
The ability of families to access quality health care most often depends on adequate health insurance coverage. For individual family members, eligibility for health insurance programs depends on age, financial and employment status, familial relationships and dependency, and medical needs. In addition, for immigrant families, eligibility often depends on citizenship status and length of residency. Too often, lack of finances and lack of skills are formidable barriers for families trying to access health insurance and medical systems.
To truly care for families, public health researchers, practitioners, and policymakers would do well to join hands with families in reforming our health care systems at the local, state, and national levels. Ultimately, the health of our families determines the health of our nation.
In closing, I have the good fortune of introducing Stella M. Yu, ScD, MPH, as the newest associate editor of the Journal. Dr Yu is well regarded for her committed work in maternal and child health. She is also a long-time champion of health and health care for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other vulnerable populations. As a firstgeneration Chinese American, Dr Yu has paved the way for my generation and subsequent generations of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to lead meaningful and successful careers in public health, and we are grateful for her valued service in this new and highly visible role.
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