Black Lives Matter

As individuals and as a team, we at the Value Institute for Health and Care see and stand with members of the Black community. We are listening.

We are committed to:

  • Work to enable meaningful health and care outcome measurement for every individual to illuminate and eliminate health disparities

  • Participate in training and other educational experiences related to unlearning racism and prioritizing equity competence in our individual and collective work

  • Emphasize equity in our work on implementing high-value health care

  • Increase diversity in the voices, examples and issues in our research, curriculum and publications

  • Include in our programs training and educational experiences related to unlearning racism, prioritizing equity competence and reducing health and care disparities

  • Recruit, hire and promote more Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) team members

  • Make our programs accessible for people across abilities and socioeconomic circumstances

  • Recruit more BIPOC participants in our programs, events and research

The Value Institute for Health and Care’s mission is to accelerate the transformation to high-value health care for everyone. We recognize that health care cannot be transformed equitably without racial justice. We understand that health care is not high-value health care unless it serves everyone equitably.

We are outraged at the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Mike Ramos and Rayshard Brooks by current and former police officers. We recognize that these and countless violent acts before them are the direct and predictable result of deeply entrenched, structural racism that has been taking health, wealth, and lives from Black communities for generations.

Alongside violence perpetrated against Black people, the COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately killing and uprooting Black lives. This, too, is a direct impact of structural racism and must change. Black people experience worse health outcomes than any other racial group in this country. The explicit and implicit biases of our predominantly White-led health care organizations—including an insufficient recognition of how racism outside the health care setting affects people’s wellbeing—have contributed to these disparities.

Thousands at UT Austin are calling on the university to dismantle racist policies, symbols and traditions; condemn racial violence; and support BIPOC communities on campus. We urge the university to take the actions needed to make UT Austin a welcoming place for all and an exemplar of racial justice and equality among institutions of higher learning.

For those of us with White privilege: We own the role we play in perpetuating racial injustice. The work of unlearning racism is lifelong; we will never arrive or be finished. We promise to recommit continuously to doing this work.

Black lives matter.

With humility and in solidarity,

Value Institute for Health and Care Team

Danielle Hicks