Health Equity

Our Commitment

Safe Kids Pennsylvania (SKPA) is part of Safe Kids Worldwide’s global network dedicated to keeping kids safe from preventable childhood injury, which is the number one cause of death among children ages 1 to 19. These injuries range from accidental falls, to poisonings, car crashes, drownings, and many more. SKPA promotes and supports childhood injury prevention activities through education, collaboration, and advocacy throughout Pennsylvania.

Unfortunately, unintentional injuries impact various communities in different ways. Historical and cultural contexts have built a society in the United States of America where people of color and other marginalized groups are disenfranchised, discriminated against, and exploited. The social foundation affects the livelihoods of all marginalized individuals and people of color; it also deeply affects people with privilege. The structures of oppression harm everyone, but that harm is not necessarily equal in nature and has vastly different outcomes for those affected.

Following the footsteps of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as many other public health and multidisciplinary agencies throughout the USA, Safe Kids PA acknowledges and recognizes the harm of racism and all other forms of oppression and marginalization, as well as their various intersections within systems and individuals. We will continue to work towards increasing health equity throughout our Commonwealth by addressing the social determinants of health with our mission. Safe Kids PA stands with those who are working towards ending heath disparities and oppressive social structures.

The reality of racism and other oppressions are not the work of any single person, but they do affect everyone in different ways. The contexts we find ourselves in are not our fault, but it is our responsibility to change those contexts to make the world a better place for all.

For our full statement, open the document below or click the tabs to read the statement in the website:

Health Equity Commitment (PDF)

Full Health Equity Statement

Safe Kids Pennsylvania Commitment to Health Equity
“To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived -that is to have succeeded.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Unfortunately, unintentional injuries impact various communities in different ways. Historical and cultural contexts have built a society in the United States of America where people of color and other marginalized groups are disenfranchised, discriminated against, and exploited. This social foundation affects the livelihoods of all marginalized individuals and people of color; it also deeply affects people with privilege. The structures of oppression harm everyone, but that harm is not necessarily equal in nature and has vastly different outcomes for those affected.

National data and our own PA Child Death Review Annual Reports (from 2015-2020, reflecting data from 2012-2017) show that Black and/or African American children die at a higher rate than those of other races -often more than twice that of white children.[1] Black infants are twice as likely to die in their first year of life than white infants. Because of differences in social contexts, Black people die at more than three times the rate of white people from heat stroke annually. American Indian and/or Alaska Native children (and adults) have higher rates of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)-related hospitalizations and deaths than any other racial group, and Black people and Hispanic people are less likely to receive follow-up care after a TBI incident. Black children and those who live within high-poverty zip codes have been disproportionately affected by unintentional poisoning fatalities. Even the Coronavirus pandemic is killing Black people at twice the rate of white people. This is not an issue of individuals having “poor health” or a group of people being particularly susceptible to injuries. This is systemic in nature, meaning that it is built into the foundation of our society through history, culture, law and policy, and worldviews.

In the same way that we question the teacher and their methods when an entire class of students fails a test, we must examine our histories and biases when we see the data listed above.

Reducing health disparities creates better health for all people, and inherent in this objective is working to end oppressive systems and unjust social standards. Through working to redeem these social conditions, we hope to make everyone breathe a little easier, and leave the world a bit better.

[1] After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the Associated Press and many other organizations made the decision to capitalize “Black” but not “white.” More information can be found on page 3.

Definitions:

Please note that the definitions of the following terms do not have scientific consensus across disciplines. The following definitions should be understood as an attempt to bring people a common understanding of unfamiliar language, not as a scientific measurement or anything similar. Further resources can be found at the end of this document.

Health equity can be understood as an ongoing process of providing every person with a fair and equitable opportunity to attain their full health potential. Ideally, it is the absence of health disparities between all populations. It means that everyone should be able to live their healthiest lives regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and/or any other marginalized identities or combinations of those identities.

The social determinants of health (SDOH) are “indicators of health and well-being in places where people live, learn, work, and play that affect a wide range of health risks and outcomes,” according to the CDC. The five SDOH indicators are Economic Stability, Education Access and Quality, Health Care Access and Quality, Neighborhood and Built Environment, and Social and Community Context.

Simply put, a person’s social location -where they are born and live, where and/or if they go to school, where they are employed or if they are employed, etc. -have real impacts on their health. Their individual circumstances are actively shaped “by the distribution of money, power, and resources at global, national, and local levels” -all of which can be altered and changed. The primary way to improve individual health is to improve the SDOH through social policy, public health services, and other evidence-based programs.

How do we fulfill this commitment?

Most Recent Actions:

In the 2024-2025 fiscal year, the State Office is prioritizing the translation of educational materials into needed languages to better serve communities in Pennsylvania. The State Office was able to translate the Family Safety Activity Book -already available in English and Spanish-into three other languages, Arabic, Haitian Creole, and Nepali. We will continue to translate materials as possible.
Safe Kids PA participated in a pilot program on “Health Equity: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Assessment Guide for Multidisciplinary Teams” in the winter of 2021. This health equity assessment tool is being developed in a partnership between Safe Kids Worldwide, Children’s Safety Network, and the National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention.

General Actions:

On our website, under each safety topic page is a “Learn More” section. When relevant and available, we have included resources and links that focus specifically on the intersection of that safety topic and issues of health equity. We have also included them all on this page for easy access (under “Safety Topics and Health Equity“). These are updated regularly so we all have up-to-date information.
The State Office Coordinator is a part of the Safe States Alliance Anti-racism and Health Equity Work Group. This Work Group is charged with addressing the connections between systemic racism, health inequity, injuries, and violence.
The State Office offers mini grants each year to the PA Coalitions and Partners of the State. As of the fall of 2022, the processes -including the application, scoring rubric, and final report -have been updated to prioritize both evidence-based strategies and health equity approaches, which are priorities of the State office and the PA Department of Health.
Trainings and webinars involving health equity issues are passed along from the State Office to local Coalitions and Partners of the State in order to prioritize capacity building around health equity ideas and efforts.

At the State level, we are dedicated to advocating for and supporting policies and legislation that will decrease health disparities and increase overall equity within our communities.

We will continue to update this page with work we are doing and actions we are taking to show our commitment to health equity.

Land Acknowledgement

We know from research and data that marginalized groups experience both higher rates of and worse outcomes from unintentional (and intentional) injuries. Part of our prevention work must be dismantling anti-Native sentiments and supporting Native communities, so that we all can achieve health equity together.

Read our land acknowledgement in the tab below, and take some time to do more research into how you can support Native people today.

First Nations Land Acknowledgement

The area we know currently as Pennsylvania is the ancestral home and land of many First Nations people. While there are Native people who still reside in the Commonwealth and can trace their lineage back to these groups, Pennsylvania does not recognize any tribes or nations within its borders, and there are no federally recognized tribes or nations within PA.

Picture the state of Pennsylvania as it is currently known. Before (and while) Europeans colonized the land and forcibly removed its people, this was the layout:

In the northwest were the Erie or Erielhonan Natives, the Honniasont tribe, and the Wenrohronon tribe. All along the north was the Iroquois Confederacy or Haudenosaunee Confederacy, particularly the Seneca and Oneida tribes. Eventually, the Tuscarora Nation joined the Iroquois Confederacy as the Sixth Nation. The Lenni Lenape (or Delaware) Nation populated the eastern border of PA, with the Munsee community in the northeast and eventually the Nanticoke tribe to the southeast. In central PA, the Susquehannock lived along the longest river on the East Coast of the USA, the Susquehanna River, which was a name derived from the Lenape. Central PA also housed members of the Monacan Nations (particularly the Tutelo and Saponi tribes). Southcentral and Southwestern PA was the home of the Shawnee tribe, the Saluda tribe (who may have been a Shawnee offshoot), and the Osage Nation who were eventually forced further west.

The heartbreaking truth is that some of these tribes have been completely wiped out by European disease and massacres. And those who did not die faced intentional erasure of their culture, language, beliefs, and more through forced removal, and “boarding schools,” among other threats. In fact, one of the earliest federally funded off-reservation schools was in Carlisle, PA, and was known as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. The founder of this “school” had a motto: “Kill the Indian, save the man.” This ethnic cleansing and forced assimilation amounted to nothing less than cultural (and often literal) genocide.

As the Pennsylvania Youth Congress writes, “A land acknowledgement is not enough. We must commit our solidarity with the sovereignty and self-determination of all Native peoples. Social justice means decolonization. This land acknowledgement is an opening for us all to understand the role each of us have in supporting Native peoples right now.” The history of oppression and genocide has had and will continue to have an impact on Native people, including higher rates of poverty, low access to education and clean water, and poor health outcomes overall.

To learn more about what you can do to support Native groups:

Visit the First Nations Development Institute or the National Congress of American Indians or the Native American Rights Fund to learn some history, current issues, and how to support them

Find the land you reside on: https://native-land.ca/

Support Native Businesses: http://www.beyondbuckskin.com/p/buy-native.html

Educate yourself: https://www.firstnations.org/knowledge-center/books/