Fostering Healthcare Equity: Insights from Boston’s 2024 STATUS List Honorees

Wednesday night in downtown Boston, journalists, physicians, researchers, CEOs and more gathered to celebrate the release of STAT’s 2024 STATUS List. The list showcases 50 leaders in the life sciences who are working to improve healthcare in the US and worldwide.

The event featured members of this year’s list as well as past honorees who shared their insights on key issues that need to be prioritized to improve healthcare. One of the main themes discussed was equity and inclusion in medical science.

Jonathan Jackson, an honoree from 2023 and the executive director of the Community Access, Recruitment, and Engagement Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School emphasized the need to move research away from elite institutions to achieve true equity. He highlighted the importance of prioritizing the needs of marginalized populations that are often overlooked in research and advocacy efforts.

Stuart Orkin, a professor at Harvard Medical School also talked about equity in medical science. He pointed out that powerful institutions like National Institutes of Health and pharmaceutical industry have underinvested sickle cell research for many years which has led to disparities in health outcomes among different populations. His research laid the foundation for Vertex’s groundbreaking gene therapy for sickle cell disease which predominantly affects Black individuals. Now he has become an advocate for equity in research and healthcare, highlighting the importance of addressing disparities in health outcomes among different populations.