Afternoon Keynote Speaker — Dave Ellis: “What’s Strong With You? A Conversation About Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) versus (ACEs)"
Dave Ellis, executive director of the NJ Office of Resilience, gave an enthralling talk about community and what it takes to build it meaningfully, inviting audience members to get to know each other better. "I know a whole bunch of folks who don't agree with the world according to data, and the biggest conversation that I like having with them is, 'Help me understand how you got there,'" he said. "I don't have to like you to appreciate that by which you have come to see the world differently than I do." Ellis also mentioned the importance of taking care of oneself, acknowledging trauma and its impact on people's lives, and finding ways to relieve stress. "What are you doing for you?" he asked as a final question in the interactive keynote session.
Keynote Speaker — Dr. Jubril Oyeyemi: “The Deep Roots of Inequality: Pushing Boundaries to Advance Equitable Care”
Dr. Jubril Oyeyemi, founder of the Cherry Hill Free Clinic and medical director of care management initiatives for the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, offered attendees a ground view of what it has been like fighting the pandemic while also confronting ingrained systemic racism in the healthcare system. He noted the example of Dr. Susan Moore in Indiana, whose COVID-19 symptoms had been downplayed and ignored by a white doctor before she died. "This here is a metaphor for what is going on," Dr. Oyeyemi said. "It's the plea of a people who are perpetually ignored." He also discussed how his organization's community ambassador program, which included neighbors going door-to-door to encourage vaccinations, led Camden to go from a 40% adult vaccination rate to 75% in six months.
Representative Andy Kim Shares Legislative Efforts to Ensure Residents Have Food on the Table
Representative Andy Kim, who represents New Jersey's 3rd Congressional District in Burlington and Ocean Counties, focused on the efforts of the Ocean County YMCA to help feed residents when they lost jobs and had trouble putting meals on the table. He has introduced legislation with the help of the NJ YMCA State Alliance that would continue summer meal programs and remove barriers families face in accessing them. "Hunger was a problem before the pandemic, and it's going to be a huge problem in the years to come," he said. Kim also noted other legislative efforts underway that he said, "are going to have important and historic investments when it comes to our children and our families – whether that's for child care funding, health care premiums staying down, or continuing with the child tax credit."
Persichilli Discusses the Pandemic’s Impact on Communities of Color
Judith Persichilli, Commissioner of Health, acknowledged the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on communities of color in her remarks, including Black and Hispanic residents getting hospitalized at 2.5 times the rate of their white counterparts and dying at double the rate. "The pandemic laid bare the continuing health equity challenges in our state and nationally," she said, highlighting systemic healthcare racism as a contributing factor to those inequities. "We consistently viewed all of our actions during the pandemic through a health equity lens, focusing on bringing testing, and vaccines, and other resources to communities who are underserved." She committed to continuing that work, adding, "Working together, we can learn from this ongoing pandemic, we can invest more in our communities, we can strengthen efforts to build connections to better health and recovery."
Healthcare Racism, Bias & COVID-19
In a session on "Healthcare Racism, Bias and COVID-19: A Call to Action," Dr. Margaret Fisher, special adviser to the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health, and Dr. Patricia Whitley-Williams, professor of pediatrics and division chief at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, expanded on Commissioner Persichilli's earlier remarks on health disparities among communities of color. She also explained the longstanding and persistent inequities driving them. For example, there were fewer COVID-19 sites in communities of color, drive-through testing sites left out individuals without cars, and essential workers struggled to get time off for testing. They discussed the importance of implicit bias training, with Dr. Whitley-Williams noting a study that has documented and demonstrated the existence of discrimination in the medical field. "I think it was a wakeup call to make sure that we are training and educating the future physicians of tomorrow regarding this inequity in treatment," she said.
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