Racism and health should be at the center of discussions as society is lined with stigma, inequalities, and civil rights injustices. Skin color is one of the factors leading to the treatment of people and how they are perceived. Racism affects the health and well-being of people and large communities in ways that it snuffs out opportunities of people to contribute to their futures.
To assist a solution and conversations to take place for such a problem the American Public Health Association has offered a webinar series to help people understand health disparities that happen because of race.
It helps viewers plan interventions and understands how to partake in conversation nationally regarding racism and health. The webinar features APHA President Shiriki Kumanyika and many other experts that bring important topics to the table.
This webinar series is made in four parts using data and examples with effective analogies to help viewers know health disparities related to race. The series offers recommendations, effective plans of intervention, and invites conversations to take place nationally on race and health. All webinars are as long as one hour.
The first webinar is called ‘Naming and addressing racism: A primer’ includes information provided by Shiriki Kumanyika, on how the most difficult tools of social stratification are racism when trying to better public health. Cameron Jones adds telling the Gardener’s Tale, using the Cliff analogy she represents a better framework to understand racism. This framework is useful in the understanding of the basis on which differences based on race take place in health.
It also helps understand race-associated differences in designing operative interventions to erase those differences and starting a conversation on a national level. To encourage fruitful conversations to happen, these webinars are designed to educate viewers and create an environment where these concepts can be understood.
The second webinar titled ‘No safety, no health: A conversation about race, place, and preventing violence’ includes information on how community violence can be prevented as it is a preventable public health issue and is molded by factors among which is racism.
A community cannot realize its full potential when violence impacts its overall health and full well-being. In the webinar, Linda Degutis and Howard Pinderhughes talk about racism, places where they take place, and prevention from violence. They explore public health’s role in stopping this epidemic from taking place and discuss how many sectors might have to be involved in the solution.
Also read: Racial Discrimination May Cause Depression in Black Teenagers
In the final webinar titled ‘Racism: The silent partner in high school dropout and health disparities,’ it is discussed how barriers exist that limit high school graduation making it a public concern. Healthy behaviors as an adult and health status are a clear indicator of receiving high school graduation. Adewale Troutman describes how health disparities have a significant link to high school graduation.
Robert Murphy examines further in the webinar how students of color are disproportionately impacted by policies and practices in educational systems. Near the end, Camara Jones touches topics of residential segregation, achievements in education gap, and actionable steps to be taken linked to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
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These webinars that discuss racism and health and how they correlate in this severe epidemic, can be used to better develop a joint understanding of how race and racism affect health. This can also be used for an understanding in hopes to support Health in All policies approaches to equity in health. These can be effectively used individually or as a source for group discussions.
