Welcome to Season 4 of Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

I'm Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, and a former Commissioner of Health in Baltimore City.

Our goal is to bring

scientific evidence and experience to current topics in public health through engaging interviews

with scientists, community leaders, policy experts, public health officials, clinicians, and more.

If you have ideas or questions for us to cover, please email us at public health question at jhhhu.edu.

That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes.

Hi, I'm Lindsay Smith-Rogers, producer of Public Health On Call. Today, with Juneteenth one day away,

we have a podcast about health equity and how to achieve it.

Dr. Josh Sharfstein talks to Dr. Michelle Spencer, a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School

of Public Health, and an expert in community-led efforts to reduce disparities and improve health.

Previously, she led a program to establish health enterprise zones across Maryland.

In this interview, she discusses a new state law to go further and create health equity resource

communities.

Let's listen.

Michelle Spencer, thank you so much for joining me today for the podcast.

We're talking about this innovative law that just passed in the state of Maryland

of the Health Equity Resource Act.

What is the goal of this law?

So thanks, Josh, for the opportunity to talk about this new legislation.

The goal of this law is to prioritize health equity.

It focuses on eliminating barriers and accessing care in communities with the greatest inequities. And it focuses on addressing racial, ethnic health disparities, really to improve access and reduce healthcare costs.

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