For Nneka Sederstrom, racial disparities in health care are, quite literally, a matter of life and death. After overseeing the clinical ethics department at Children’s Minnesota for almost five years, Sederstrom in early 2021 became Hennepin Healthcare’s first chief health equity officer. Since then, she’s been working to educate the health system’s more than 7,300 employees on the impacts of racism in medicine. Her own health equity team is about 150 strong, and she aims to continue growing in 2024. “Our goal is not only to decrease health disparities; we want to eliminate them altogether,” Sederstrom says.

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