what leads to damage in the kidneys isn’t a pure question of biology; social factors interact, too.
“The fact that your zip code can affect how long you live or how healthy you are really stood out to me as I first began to explore a career in public health. And of course, race plays a part in that as well,” says Valerie Nwanji, a fellow in Penn’s Renal-Electrolyte and Hypertension division.
While Black people make up about 13% of the United States population, they represent 35% of Americans with kidney failure.
“Unfortunately, people of color are disproportionately affected by kidney disease, in part due to high rates of diabetes and high blood pressure,” says Yuvaram Reddy, an assistant professor of medicine and the director for Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in the Renal-Electrolyte and Hypertension division.
On top of these inequities, patients of color can experience noted detrimental impacts when the people providing their health care are non-diverse—including risks of undermining trust and patient health. But when a workforce better represents the diversity of the patient population they care for, the outcomes are tremendously improved.
Reddy and the Renal-Electrolyte & Hypertension division have taken this to heart. Throughout the past few years, they created pathways to support and celebrate underrepresented staff, nurses, patients, trainees, and physicians—with the hopes of advancing health equity in kidney disease.
“We envision a future where clinicians partner with patients to overcome inequalities, so every patient with kidney disease can receive the same high-quality care,” says Reddy. “And this work starts by focusing on what we can improve internally as a team.”
As part of these efforts, the division created a first-of-its-kind fellowship for trainees—a chief DEI fellowship. Nwanji is the inaugural chief DEI fellow.
And as chief DEI fellow, she is now leading the charge with Reddy on improving the recruitment of minority trainees to the fellowship program, while implementing a DEI curriculum that includes a journal club and patient panel discussions centered on diversity and the elimination of race-based medicine. Additionally, Nwanji is leading health equity research and quality improvement projects focused on alleviating perceptions of racism that may improve access to CKD education and referral to transplantation so that patients receive the health care and treatments they deserve.
Read more at Penn Medicine News.
