“No one has a right to work with poor people unless they have a real analysis of why people are poor.”

- Barbara Major, Former Director of St. Thomas Health Clinic

HOP recognizes that the root causes of social inequities and health disparities are structural factors – policies, economic systems, and social hierarchies such as racism. We define social structures as, “the policies, economic systems, and other institutions (judicial systems, schools, etc.) that have produced and maintain modern social inequities as well as health disparities, often along the lines of social categories such as race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability.” To effectively serve their patients and communities, it's important for health centers to build their capacity to not only describe the link between social inequities and health disparities, but to also look further upstream at the structural factors.