A Novel Approach to Locating Community Clinics to Promote Health Care Accessibility and Reduce Health Disparities in Baltimore, Maryland

Inquiry. 2023 Jan-Dec:60:469580221135953. doi: 10.1177/00469580221135953.

Abstract

Baltimore, Maryland's entrenched racial residential segregation renders the city's world-class medical facilities and services inaccessible to many Black residents living in its most divested neighborhoods. Arguing the need for post-pandemic health care facilities to address health inequities as a practice of care-giving, this article describes a project funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to define a novel, transdisciplinary methodology for identifying ideal vacant sites for conversion into community clinics in Baltimore's most vulnerable neighborhoods. Positioning architecture as a social determinant of health, this paper suggests ethical and methodological reorientations toward a compassionate approach to clinic design and placement.

Keywords: Baltimore; community clinics; delivery of health care; health disparities; pandemics; social determinants of health.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Ambulatory Care Facilities
  • Baltimore
  • Health Promotion*
  • Health Services Accessibility*
  • Humans