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Why declaring racism a public health crisis matters
Since 2019, policymakers from more than 50 American municipalities and three states have formally highlighted racism as a public health crisis.
Op-ed: Ban menthol cigarettes to save Black lives
In an op-ed, experts recommend banning menthol cigarettes, which have been aggressively marketed to Black people, contributing to health disparities.
Reducing socioeconomic disparities could help ‘pandemic-proof’ America
Social scientist David R. Williams says reducing socioeconomic disparities could help African Americans fare better when future pandemics hit.
Bringing a public health focus to the business world
Experts from the worlds of business and public health are discussing ways for businesses to operate safely amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Black people more than three times as likely as white people to be killed during a police encounter
Black Americans are 3.23 times more likely than whites to be killed by police.
Perspective: Racism is ‘pernicious, pervasive, cutting short lives’
The legacy of slavery in the U.S. has led to a wide range of health inequalities that have plagued the African American community for years, wrote Michelle Williams, dean of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in…
A black ER doctor reflects on everyday encounters with racism
Khama Ennis, MPH ’02, is chief of emergency medicine at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Massachusetts. As a black doctor, she sees racism every day. Ennis wrote about the bias she encounters from patients in a June 11, 2020…
Ending racial injustice in health
George Floyd’s death has magnified both the urgent need to end racism and, in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, the urgent need to end the racial injustice of health inequity in America, wrote Howard Koh of Harvard…
Could protests cause COVID-19 spikes? Tough to tell.
If coronavirus infections surge in the wake of protests against police brutality and racism, it won’t necessarily mean that the protests are what’s causing the increase. That’s because the protests have been happening around the same time that…
Racism can erode physical well-being
The chronic stress of experiencing discrimination can gradually erode people’s physical well-being over time, according to Mary Bassett, director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. Bassett was one of several experts…
