A particular moment stands out to Sarah Bedard Holland, the CEO of Virginia Health Catalyst, as when she realized she wanted to work in health care: 

“When I was in high school, someone who was very close to me was diagnosed with AIDS, and I had the opportunity to see firsthand how my community reacted to that,” Bedard Holland says. “I saw how the health care system responded to him, his diagnosis, and ultimate death. . . . I think it was that general injustice and inequity that really cemented for me that there was an opportunity to change things.” 

Jennifer Harris, the senior health policy advocate at Alabama Arise, says no day is the same at her job.

“You may have someone that’s working over here to reduce tooth decay in school-age children, and then you may have someone in another part of the state that is looking at the accessibility for someone who’s disabled to be seen by a provider,” Harris says. “What I’m doing is creating a network where we can bring all our work together to really make strides in access when it comes to oral health.”

Many of the patients Lauren Rush, DDS, sees at MyCare Health Center in Michigan have to choose between taking care of their own personal health or putting food on the table for their family.

That’s because at MyCare Health Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), most patients are enrolled in Medicaid. That means they have issues accessing oral health care, whether it’s due to finding reliable transportation, getting childcare so they can go to their appointment, or getting time off work.

In early 2022, 700 Afghan refugees arrived in central Iowa, trying to settle into a community unlike any they’d ever seen. A strange landscape. A sea of unfamiliar faces. A new life.

And they had 90 days to get settled.