Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) led a resolution along with Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) declaring that racism is a “public health crisis.”
Bown’s resolution, “Declaring racism a public health crisis,” says that a “public health crisis” becomes an issue when it is “unfairly distributed among different populations, disproportionately impacting health outcomes, access to health care, and life expectancy.”
“Public health experts agree that significant racial inequities exist in the prevalence, severity, and mortality rates of various health conditions in the United States,” it notes, explaining that life expectancies are “significantly lower” than those of “non-Hispanic White people” in the U.S.
The resolution goes on to claim, without citing support, that “inequities in health outcomes are exacerbated for people of color who are LGBTQIA+.”
In a press release for the resolution, Brown said, “This resolution is an important step toward recognizing the racial disparities in healthcare that have existed for far too long, while also outlining concrete action we can take now to help reverse them. Your background or the color of your skin shouldn’t determine whether you get quality, respectful care, or whether your air and water are clean, or whether there’s a good hospital nearby. This declaration will help to lay the foundation for change, so that all Americans can live longer, healthier lives.”
The release described that the resolution emphasizes “discrimination within health care and the systemic barriers that people of color continue to face when seeking care.”
Brown first introduced the resolution in 2020 and has reintroduced it annually.
Some healthcare systems have already implemented programs training employees to address the “history of racism in healthcare.”
The Kentucky Board of Nursing instructed healthcare workers to undergo the training that seeks to eliminate alleged racism and bias.
Nurses were taught that examples of “covert racism,” including “white silence,” “denying institutional racism,” the phrase “there’s only one human race,” “bootstrap theory,” “Eurocentric school curricula,” “weaponizing whiteness,” “fetishizing POC,” “claiming ‘reverse racism,’” “excusing/ ‘white-splaining’ racism.”
