The "SOME PEOPLE" Essays
Hurricanes and Health by Ayanna V. Buckner MD, MPH, FACPM | Edited by Kimberly J. Soenen
(Children play the board game “Life” at the Red Cross Shelter at the Monroe Civic Center in Monroe, Louisiana, while waiting for healthcare assistance after Hurricane Katrina, 2005. Photo by Miles Boone.)
Growing up in New Orleans, I loved to play with my siblings and cousins. Like the kids pictured, who severe flooding in Louisiana in 2016 displaced, I sought childhood fun while tough things were going on around me. I overheard conversations about people not being able to afford their blood pressure medicines. They “felt fine,” so they didn’t take them, but then they later had a debilitating heart attack or died of a stroke.
I wondered why they didn’t understand that they needed the medicine even though they didn’t feel sick. Over time, I noticed that people in underserved communities have more health issues and often don’t have the financial resources or health literacy to prevent or overcome illnesses as well as people with higher incomes and more education. As I grew older, I learned that people who live in the south are disproportionately impacted by poor health outcomes. This bothered me deeply.
I was drawn to a career in medicine and Public Health because I wanted to address these problems. I later learned that preexisting disparities make people living in the south more prone to the repercussions of floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, as well as man-made disasters such as oil spills.
I’ve worked on projects to support healthcare systems in Gulf Coast communities in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. I was frustrated to see so many people without health insurance struggle to get the healthcare they needed after a disaster, while the process was usually easier for people with insurance.
The need for effective solutions to our country’s Health Equity and healthcare access issues are heavily based in a Social Justice imperative, providing the key distinction that qualifies Healthcare Justice as a fiscal priority in our country.
ABOUT THE “SOME PEOPLE” AUTHOR
Ayanna V. Buckner MD, MPH, FACPM is double board-certified in Preventive Medicine/Public Health and Internal Medicine, and has extensive experience in community-based health education, outreach, and evaluation.
Dr. Buckner received a Bachelor of Science degree from Xavier University of Louisiana and a Doctor of Medicine degree from Meharry Medical College. She completed a combined residency program in Internal Medicine and Preventive Medicine at Griffin Hospital, during which she received a Master’s Degree in Public Health, with an emphasis in Health Management, from Yale University.
Before founding Community Health Cooperative, she served as an Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine at the Morehouse School of Medicine. She also served as director of the Regional Coordinating Center for Hurricane Response at the Morehouse School of Medicine, through which she managed multi-state projects to assist with rebuilding the health systems in the Gulf Region after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.