10th Annual Renée Royak-Schaler Lecture in Health Equity
Thursday, April 11, 2024
1:00 pm | MSTF Atrium
MPH Program 20th Anniversary Lunch
2:15 pm | Leadership Hall
Public Health in the Making: Learning from History, Leaving a Legacy, and Building Communities
Diane Marie St. George, PhD
Vice Chair, Academic Affairs
Director, MPH
University of Maryland School of Medicine
Transforming Public Health to Achieve Health Justice
Ruqaiijah Yearby, JD, MPH
Kara J. Trott Professor in Health Law
The Ohio State University
4:15 pm | MSTF Atrium
Please join us for coffee and dessert following the lecture.
Transforming Public Health to Achieve Health Justice
Presented by:
Ruqaiijah Yearby, JD, MPH
Public health officials and researchers have identified the social determinants of health as central causes for health inequities for racial and ethnic minority individuals. However, one of the root causes of health inequities, structural discrimination, has often been overlooked. Structural Discrimination is the power used by dominant groups to organize systems that provide life sustaining resources in a manner that prioritizes their needs, protects their rights, values their beliefs, helps them thrive and prosper, and sustains their power.
One form of structural discrimination is structural racism, which has been used to organize systems in a way that limits racial and ethnic minority individuals’ access to life sustaining resources, resulting in health inequities. Policy and law (political process, statutes, regulations, policies, guidance, advisory opinions, cases, budgetary decisions, as well as the process of or failure to enforce the law) are some of the tools used to create these differential conditions by structuring systems in a racially discriminatory way.
For example, structural racism in employment facilitated by laws and policies has not only relegated many racial and ethnic minority individuals to low-wage jobs, but it has also allowed employers to pay racial and ethnic minority individuals less for doing the same work as white individuals. Research has shown these practices are associated with health inequities experienced by racial and ethnic minority individuals.
To transform public health and address these racism health inequities, public health officials (federal and state) and researchers should adopt the health justice framework, which provides a systems-level approach to reform that is guided by three principles: 1) truth and reconciliation; 2) engagement and empowerment of racial and ethnic minority individuals; and 3) structural remediation and financial supports.
Registration
Registration is now closed.