POLICY BRIEF article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1651092
This article is part of the Research TopicPublic Health Outcomes: The Role of Social Security Systems in Improving Residents' Health WelfareView all 86 articles
Health Equity in Nebraska: Addressing Disparities Through Place-Based Policy Innovation
Provisionally accepted
Changmin Yan1*
Michelle Hughes1
Lindsey Crawford1Maria Cantu-Hines2Roopan Miriam George1
Dipti Dev1
Greg Bashford1- 1University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, United States
- 2Four Corners Health Department, Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, Lincoln, United States
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This policy paper examines persistent health disparities in Nebraska, drawing on insights from a symposium that engaged more than 180 health professionals and organizational leaders statewide. Nebraska's dual burden of rural provider shortages and urban socioeconomic inequities highlights the need for place-based policy solutions tailored to diverse regional drivers of health disparities—an approach that can be adapted by other states facing similar urban-rural divides. The paper urges Nebraska-focused public health policies with strategies other states can adapt. Key recommendations include expanding pediatric mental health services, implementing community-based interventions targeting social determinants of health, and increasing access to care through telehealth, and culturally and linguistically appropriate services. These approaches aim to advance equity in Nebraska and inform broader national efforts to reduce health disparities.
Keywords: Health Disparities, social determinants of health (SDOH), Rural Health, Health Equity (MeSH), Public health policy (PHP), Mental Health Services, Nebraska Health
Received: 20 Jun 2025; Accepted: 21 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yan, Hughes, Crawford, Cantu-Hines, George, Dev and Bashford. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Changmin Yan, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, United States
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