Health Inequities and Racism: Doing My Own Work.

Diversity within diversity. Research informs action. Planting seeds of co-learning & co-production. Doing my own work to address health inequities and racism.

Diversity within diversity

Once again, on a Zoom call this week, I introduce myself as a two-legged, cisgender, old white man of privilege. I personally know several, not tens or hundreds, of people suffering or dying of COVID-19 — none in my immediate family. I know that racial and ethnic minority populations bear an outsized burden of COVID-19: higher infection rates, more severe illness, and higher death rates. Health disparities and inequities, and institutional racism play a role.

The science of measuring health equity and the effects of institutional racism intrigues me. I feel dissatisfied when I hear the conversation begin and end with slicing and dicing outcomes with race and ethnicity data — African American, Hispanic, Caucasian, Native American, etc. Any profound knowledge of race and ethnicity can only lead to an appreciation of more diversity and nuance. Diversity occurs within diversity. Consider, for example, the factor of whether someone is an immigrant or not (where they were born) Whatever race and ethnicity, is the person born outside the US, first-generation US, or 15th generation or more? If born outside the US, did…