How can the United States make a great stride toward multiracial well-being?

Abstract

In America and around the world, one’s chances for well-being depend on systems that are not yet built for everyone to thrive together. Knowing that life expectancy and life evaluation are far below their full potential, with stark injustices by race/ethnicity, we ask: how can the United States make a great stride toward multiracial well-being?. This study explores potential impacts of a federal plan for thriving people and places. We estimate the likely effects of 68 recommendations using ReThink Health’s Thriving Together Model (TTM), revised with new data and new features including a multisolving ratio that accounts for greater cost-effectiveness when a proposed action advances multiple goals at once. The TTM is a previously published system dynamics model that simulates changes over time when community assets (both funding and in-kind resources) are invested in four drivers of population well-being (i.e., Vital Conditions, Belonging and Civic Muscle, Fairness in System Design, and Urgent Services Capacity). All drivers work together through a dynamic structure that influences individual states of thriving, suffering, and life expectancy (overall and by race/ethnicity). The model specifies three reinforcing dynamics, including an “expanding the pie” loop that can increase available assets and improve all four well-being drivers over time. Results reveal a plausible scenario over 25 years in which thriving could rise 20 percentage points, suffering could drop 2.5 percentage points, and average life expectancy could grow by 2.6 years – all from equitable progress across racial/ethnic groups. Every subgroup improves, but the greatest gains would likely be among Black and Hispanic Americans. Sensitivity tests confirm that the model’s conclusions are robust across identified uncertainty ranges. The federal plan points the way toward a just transition for multiracial well-being. It does not require new appropriations or authorities: only the will and wherewithal to bring these recommendations to life.