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Newsletters 11/24/2025

November 2025 – Health Advocate Insights

Health Advocate Insights

November, 2025

The Health Advocate Insights is our monthly digital space, where we highlight a handful of key developments and share how all of us, whether we are students, healthcare providers, educators, administrators, or organizers, can promote health workforce diversity and social accountability in health professional training programs.

Our hope is that each issue gives you three things: a clearer sense of what is moving, a spark of energy from seeing how others are pressing forward, and at least one way you can plug in and act.

In this edition, you will find a round-up of the past month’s biggest advocacy updates, resources for deeper learning, and invitations to take action wherever you are, including being a part of the For Us All campaign.

Catch Up with the For Us All Campaign

This fall, we relaunched the For Us All Campaign, where we shared recent updates and ways you can join the fight for transformative health justice through social accountability within health professions training institutions. If you missed the relaunch, you can watch the recording here and catch up on the conversations that took place.

This moment asks us to truly lean on one another, root ourselves in the stories that inspire us, and imagine what has always been possible.

Get involved:

  • Submit a story to the For Us All Campaign to highlight local work.Check out our newest blog posts featuring stories from the field
  • Share our posts and this newsletter with colleagues who are trying to make sense of what’s unfolding
  • Email us to learn how you can support our Health Justice Fellows as they advance health justice in their communities.
Avik Chatterjee

Check out our new blog post, How Community-Based Education and Research Shaped My Career Goals

“The third pillar of the Social Mission Alliance’s “For Us All” campaign is “Anti-Racist and Justice-Oriented Education.” Without having articulated it that way, this pillar encapsulates the motivation for the teaching I do, the community-based research I work on, and the students I choose to mentor, often students from backgrounds under-represented in medicine, for whom such projects are often of particular importance.”

-Avik Chatterjee, MD MPH

 Immigration Crackdowns Continue to Threaten Patients and Providers

Content note: This section includes references to ICE violence, surveillance, and medical neglect

While the government shutdown has dominated national headlines, we’re turning our attention this month to the latest in immigration and ICE violence. The administration continues to escalate its attacks on immigrant communities, with ICE agents across the U.S. conducting intensified actions in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago that have caused significant community harm. Alarmingly, ICE is using social media data, facial recognition, and private tax data to target community members. Reports of medical neglect and harmful conditions continue to characterize detention centers, with ICE now moving to hire contracted health workers to provide care. 

The result is a growing climate of fear: patients are skipping appointments, delaying treatment, and forgoing medications because they worry about being taken from their families and homes. New directives seek to bar visa applicants with medical conditions such as diabetes. And the impact does not stop with patients. Immigrants make up a vital share of the health workforce, and recent policies will likely deepen existing shortages that already leave many communities without care.

Learn more and act:

The Campus Compact and What's at Stake

The Trump administration has hurled multiple attacks on universities, including launching civil rights probes, freezing millions in federal research dollars (UCLA’s was recently restored), and terminating funding for Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs). The administration’s latest attack comes in the form of a 10-point compact sent to nine universities that will give federal funding preference to those that uphold the administration’s higher education priorities, including banning the use of race or sex in hiring and admissions, requiring students to take standardized testing, and capping international undergrad enrollment. Recently, Trump has opened the offer to all universities. MIT, Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, and USC have rejected the proposal, citing concerns with limiting academic freedom. California Governor Gavin Newsom has threatened to pull state funding for any California school that signs on.

Learn more and act:

Image by freepik

Take Action Now

Curious about what you can do? Here are opportunities to take action from wherever you are.

Submit a Blog Post for the For Us All Campaign

If you are part of an initiative that aligns with the five pillars of the For Us All campaign and would like to submit an essay to be published on our website or that of one of our campaign coalition partners, please submit your ideas through the form on our For Us All webpage. 

Sign Up for People, Power, Change: Marshall Ganz in Conversation with Erica Chenoweth

In a time of deepening polarization, Marshall Ganz, one of the world’s leading voices on democratic organizing, shares ideas for strengthening democracy at every level. Register to join the conversation to discuss how local and state leaders can build relationships, harness collective power, and design strategies for renewal in the face of national division. Join on November 20, 2025.

Apply for The Center for Integrative Social Medicine and Population Health (CISMPH) Fellowship 

This year-long fellowship is a multidisciplinary training initiative designed for undergraduate, medical, public health, and other graduate students, as well as those currently taking gap years and early-career health professionals. The program aims to cultivate a new generation of scholars and practitioners dedicated to advancing health equity by bridging the gap between clinical care and the social, economic, and policy determinants of health. Applications for the CISMPH Fellowship are due November 30, 2025.

Apply for the New York Academy of Medicine’s David E. Rogers Student Fellowship Award 

This award provides $4,000 to support research projects in medicine and dentistry that span 10 to 12 weeks and contribute to the health of communities, addressing the human needs of underserved or disadvantaged patients or populations. The 2026 Fellowship Award application cycle is now open and due on January 20, 2026.

Save the date for “The Undercommons: Community-Student Forums for Fugitive Learning” on January 20th

As anti-DEI policies threaten community involvement in the health professional training process and weaken institutional responsiveness to the realities of those living in the shadows of the university, learners and community members are taking it upon themselves to create new spaces for fostering critical dialogue that advances health equity where they are. Join us for a discussion about this and more at our first webinar of 2026 on January 20th, 2026 8-9pm ET.

Articles We're Reading

We would also love to hear from you. If something here resonates, if you have a story we should feature, or if you want to let us know how this space can better serve you, please reply to this newsletter. This is a shared project, and your perspective keeps it alive.

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    Champion Spotlight

    The Social Mission Alliance features Social Mission Champions on our social media accounts and blog. The series highlights the important work done by those who are advancing health equity and addressing the health disparities of the society in which it exists. If you’d like to be considered for a Social Mission Champion feature, complete the form below.