The California Medical Association (CMA) House of Delegates today voted to edit the association's Articles of Incorporation and include in its mission statement an overarching permanent goal of achieving health equity and justice.

“CMA must adopt permanent institutions and institutionalized policies, practices and programs that promote, support and make actionable our aspirational principles on health equity and justice in order to eliminate health inequities that undermine our state’s public health and collective well-being,” said Robert Wailes, M.D., Chair of the CMA Board of Trustees. ​

CMA’s Board of Trustees also this year created a permanent committee—the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) committee—to ensure that CMA continues to consider its actions through a health equity lens similar to CMA's longstanding "public health" guiding principle.

CMA’s new mission statement is now as follows:

To promote the science and art of medicine, the care and well-being of patients, the protection of the public health, the betterment of the medical profession, and to achieve health equity and justice.

Due to the ongoing public health emergency, CMA’s annual House of Delegates (HOD) has convened today as a virtual event.