When a person or their loved one is having a mental health crisis, they typically call 9-1-1 and police are sent to help. However, without the proper training to know how to de-escalate and respond to these crises, police often resort to arrest or use of force ending in fatal incidents. Since 2020, advocacy for...
We’ve written about the steps that can be taken by institutions to help end racism as a public health crisis. One prevalent issue that must be addressed in that process is the failure to examine racism in medical journals and publish health research that reports on its impacts. Health Affairs published a report in 2021...
Recently, a colleague reflected on her experience during our staff visit to the Village of Healing clinic, in Euclid, OH in November 2022. Village of Healing Center had just opened its doors earlier that year. Similar to her, I was in awe of the space and the important work that Da’Na Langford, MS, CNP and...
Over the course of our Racism as a Public Health Crisis series, we’ve examined suggestions offered by Dr. Camara Jones, past-President of the American Public Health Association, in a lecture on taking action beyond making declarations to address racism as a public health crisis. Her first two steps of action included 1) name racism and...
Dr. Camara Jones, past-President of the APHA, identified three steps to move beyond public health declarations into actions that actually address racism. The steps Dr. Jones suggests are to: 1. name racism, 2. identify the mechanisms by which racism operates, and 3. build strategy and take action. Part 1 of this series focuses on the first...
The current COVID-19 public health crisis is affecting everyone, but is acutely impacting those working in the health care field. A Morning Consult survey polling 1,000 healthcare workers across the U.S. in January 2021 found that almost one in two workers reported that their mental health and daily life had worsened during the pandemic, close...
The year 2020 brought with it two epidemics that have caused the premature and disproportionate deaths of Black and Brown Americans: the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and a slew of publicized police killings and racially motivated murders—Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Rayshard Brooks, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. Public outrage mounted as these...
This week marks the Juneteenth holiday. In honor of this important day in American history, several Community Solutions staff members have written about the history of Juneteenth, and every day this week we will share posts about the holiday, the lasting impact of slavery and what structural racism means for Black Americans to this day. Read...
The American Public Health Association has designated police violence as a public health crisis. It disproportionately impacts Black Americans, but especially unarmed Black Americans. In 2015, Black Americans accounted for 26.5 percent of those people who were killed by police, even though they only make up 13.2 percent of the population.[1] The Journal of the...
