Ripples of Hope in the Mississippi Delta: Charting the Health Equity Policy Agenda

The late David K. Jones spent four years visiting the Mississippi Delta conducting primary research with residents and local leaders to explore the connections between race, place, and health. He weaves their insights with data analysis to show how local, state, and national policies and structures, whether intentional or not, constrain or expand the daily choices of individuals that affect health. In order to remedy the complex problem of health disparities, Jones argues that a new approach to creating health equity policy is needed. Through firsthand narratives, Jones elevates the voices of people living and working in the Delta to guide the discovery of which community-led "ripples of hope" efforts have already been effective and should be nourished and what policy changes are still needed to support healthy lives.

In this mix of ethnography, policy, and social science, Jones offers a roadmap for creating a community-led, goal-based, deficit and asset approach to charting a health policy agenda to health equity in the Delta and beyond.