21-DAY EQUITY CHALLENGE
DAY 18
I am issuing a call for us, as an American Heart Association, community to integrate community-based interventions to promote cardiovascular health […] First, we must recognize the historical improprieties and wrongs in research, from events such as the Tuskegee syphilis study and the Henrietta Lacks cell line, which have led to a lingering mistrust of scientists and clinicians among racial and ethnic minority groups.

Dr. LaPrincess Brewer
DEFINITION AND GENERAL CONCEPTS

STRUCTURAL RACISM, a system of concentrated advantage for white people and concentrated disadvantage for people of color, best describes the net sum of the forces of oppression at work. Rather than asking how structural racism impacts health and healthcare, we must ask how healthcare in America—and its global reach— is structural racism.

Healthcare in America Is Structural Racism.
Didn’t They Teach You That in Medical School?

Rather than asking how structural racism impacts health and healthcare, we must ask how healthcare in America—and its global reach—is structural racism. Economic inequities are a root cause of health inequities globally, and drive morbidity and mortality in tragically predictable ways, but people of color are uniquely targeted by systems of capitalism, imperialism and colonialism.
A Call to Eliminate Systemic Racism in Healthcare
(1:36)

The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a new light on the deep-rooted disparities and inequities that are built into the fabric of our American healthcare … Episode #107: A Call to Eliminate Systemic Racism in Healthcare, with Michellene Davis Esq & Alisahah Cole MD
Racism in Healthcare: UNM Newsroom

“So the person sitting in front of you might be a Latino man who’s really in pain and needs medication, but you’re putting him through extra scrutiny because you’re worried about substance use disorder when you wouldn’t apply that to a White male (patient).” – Dr. Tracie Collins

“As a woman of color who’s a physician. There’s this perception like, ‘Are you really the doctor? Or is there someone you’re working for, to help you?’ During residency, I really had to put my foot down, because I’d be rotating with students – I'm the resident, and the student is learning from me – and the patient would turn to the (white) student and ask for their opinion, or say, ‘Is what she’s saying correct?’” – Dr. Tracie Collins
QUESTIONS?
For any questions about the challenge please reach out to Denise Nava of the Albuquerque Community Foundation or Hannah Royer of United Way of Central New Mexico.
If after reading this newsletter you felt that there are other co-workers, friends or family members you feel may benefit from the challenge, feel free to send them the link to sign up for the challenge found below!