Why Health Equity Matters

“What’s past is prologue.” — William Shakespeare, The Tempest

For me, those five words have never felt more urgent.

I grew up knowing what it meant to wait for care. To watch brilliant minds slowed by lack of opportunity. To see a mother delay treatment because the clinic was too far, the cost too high, or the stigma too heavy. I carry these memories,  not as burdens, but as fuel. They are the reason I believe that health equity is not only necessary, it is personal.

Over the years, my work in clinical research has taken me from lecture halls in Europe to health centers in the United States and community outreach in Nigeria. In every setting, I saw a common thread: a divide between those with access, and those without. I’ve seen innovation that never reaches the people who need it most. I’ve seen statistics hide stories.

And that’s why we created The Lawrence Family Foundation, to bridge those divides with compassion, clarity, and courage.

Health equity matters because no one’s life should be defined by the postcode they were born into. It matters because no child should die from something preventable, and no elder should suffer in silence. It matters because dignity begins with access, to clean water, to vaccines, to education, to care that listens and heals.

We do not move mountains in one day, but we plant seeds, in classrooms, in clinics, in communities, knowing that each act of service, each moment of care, becomes part of a larger harvest of hope.

Health equity is justice in action. And for me, it is legacy.
If we can move even one life closer to wholeness, then the work is not in vain.

Let this be the prologue to something better. Let us write the next chapter together.

Dr. Adewale Lawrence
President, The Lawrence Family Foundation