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...
Activists like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. worked tirelessly to ensure marginalized individuals obtain civil rights but are often gone too soon to realize the impact they have made in society. Dr. King was assassinated at 39 years old, but when pathologists completed his autopsy, they reported that his heart looked like one of a...
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...
For many, 2020 was a year of struggle and difficulties, especially dealing with a pandemic and community unrest. But for an 8-year-old child with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, 2020 would also be the year they were handcuffed by police making them the youngest person to be handcuff by Ohio’s Cleveland Division of Police. Over the years, we,...
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...
