Many of the CEMCH Scholars attended this year’s meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA), held in Denver, October 29 – November 2. We will be posting their reflections and highlights this month.
By Grace Saul, BA
A definite highlight of this year’s conference was when APHA President Dr. Camara Jones addressed the full assembly with a powerful speech calling for racism to be named and centered in the field of public health. Using several illustrative metaphors (including, notably, The Gardener’s Tale), Dr. Jones constructed an accessible framework for understanding what racism is, how it is perpetuated, and what barriers we face in seeking to dismantle it in modern society. I was amazed and inspired by Dr. Jones’ ability to synthesize this content into a picture that is easy to understand and to pass on to others.
During her tenure as President of APHA, Dr. Jones has led an initiative for addressing racism across the field of public health. As she explained, our first order of business must be to put racism on the agenda by naming it and by establishing systems to rigorously monitor exposures and outcomes that differ along racial lines. Next, we must critically examine the mechanisms at work in our systems, policies, practices, norms, and values, paying close attention not only to the existence of harmful policies, but also to the absence of supportive policies. Finally, we must organize and strategize to address the structural factors perpetuating racism and unequal access to resources, power, opportunity, and representation.
Dr. Jones additionally discussed the three principal barriers we face to achieving health equity in this country. First, our culture is a-historical: we resist the understanding that our present condition is organically connected to our past. Second, we have a narrow focus on the individual, which blinds us from seeing important sociological and institutional factors that create and perpetuate racism. And lastly, we ascribe to the myth of meritocracy, ignoring how racism fundamentally shapes opportunities and outcomes.
It was an honor to be a part of a crowd that greeted Dr. Jones’ message with a standing ovation and a collective commitment to work toward rectifying the historical, institutional injustices that persist today. Dr. Jones’ words lingered in my mind throughout the conference as I observed professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds taking a deep interest in one another’s work, asking difficult questions, and coming together as a community to better understand and confront the challenges we face in striving for health equity in our country.
Grace Saul is a first-year MPH student, concentrating in Maternal and Child Health. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Development Studies from McGill University and has previously worked in research, monitoring & evaluation, and non-profit program development in Canada, the U.S., and Senegal. Her interests include women’s health, reproductive justice, immigrant and refugee health, social norms theory, health communication, and health policy. She loves mountains, dogs, cities, maps, and photography.
