On Juneteenth, a reflection on the historical legacy of slavery | The Healthiest Goldfish

We cannot build a healthier world without addressing the legacy of slavery.

On June 19, 1865, federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas. Two months earlier, Robert E. Lee had surrendered his forces at Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the American Civil War. More than two years before that, President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing enslaved populations in states where the Confederate rebellion had been present. Yet these developments had not much affected the practice of slavery in Texas, which had continued until Union General Gordon Granger entered the state and read General Order No. 3, which said, “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” This prompted celebrations among the newly freed population and marked the end of the enslavement of Black Americans in the US.

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The killing we continue to fail to stop | The Healthiest Goldfish

We know how to fix the problem of gun violence, so why haven’t we acted on it?

On May 24, a gunman walked into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., and killed 19 children and 2 teachers. It was the third deadliest school shooting in US history. It recalls the shooting 10 years ago, when 20 students and 6 adults were killed by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School. More recently, at a high school in Parkland, Fla, a shooter killed 17 people. While these are the most visible school shootings over the past decade, 27 other school shootings have taken place this year alone and over 200 mass shootings—defined as when 4 or more people are shot or killed—have happened this year as well. There were 693 mass shootings in 2021. Horrifically, two weeks ago we saw guns used in a racially motivated massacre in Buffalo, N.Y., where 13 people were shot and 10 killed, with 11 of the victims Black. The list could, and does, go on. 

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Marking Two Years Since the Murder of George Floyd | SPH Today

Today marks the two-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It has been two years since we were reminded, brutally, of the persistence of racism in our society, and of the threat it poses to the health of Black communities—to the health of our nation. In a tragic confluence of events, this anniversary falls just weeks after a racially motivated shooting in Buffalo, NY, in which racism once again led to violence and the murder of Black Americans. In this context, the anniversary of Floyd’s murder takes on increased urgency as a call to reengage with the challenge of ending racism, to build a healthier world.

George Floyd’s murder was fundamentally a tragedy—for Floyd, for his family and community, for the country and the world. It sparked a national reckoning with racism and police brutality. It shaped how we talk about these issues and the moral urgency we bring to this conversation. This conversation remains vital, ongoing, a living testament to a life horrifically cut short.

For many, this conversation was new, unfamiliar, perhaps uncomfortable. For those of us in public health it was an overdue profile-raising of truths we have long known, that should always have been central to our thinking. We have long known that racism undermines the health of those who face it, that racism keeps us all from being fully healthy as a society. This was particularly clear during COVID-19, a global tragedy with which Floyd’s death intersected. As the pandemic unfolded, Black Americans were three times as likely to sicken and twice as likely to die from the disease than white Americans. This vulnerability to disease long predated the pandemic and has been reflected by a range of Black-white health gaps, in which communities of color have long borne poorer health. The roots of these health gaps run deep, stemming from a history of racism that is inextricable from our country’s legacy of slavery. George Floyd’s murder, and the Black-white health gaps made unignorable by COVID-19, were a stark reminder, if we needed one, that we cannot address poor health in the present without addressing this history.

In the years since George Floyd’s murder, our school has worked to build on our longstanding engagement with the link between racism and health. We have welcomed lawmakers to our community to discuss antiracism as health policy, our scholars have engaged with the BU Center for Antiracist Research to continue this conversation, and our students, faculty, staff, and alumni work each day to shape a world free of racism and the poor health it creates. This focus is consistent with our community’s commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice, a commitment which shapes all we do, on a long journey to do better by our community, inhabiting our responsibility to create an anti-racist world.

The trauma of George Floyd’s murder remains raw, reflecting a broken status quo we have not yet fully addressed. We cannot bring George Floyd back, but we can work to ensure that his memory will forever be linked to a better future to which we should all aspire. Thank you to all who are engaging in this work, today and every day.

Warm regards,

Sandro

Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH
Dean, Robert A Knox Professor

On centering reproductive health and access in the public health agenda | The Healthiest Goldfish

A few days ago, Politico obtained a draft majority opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. If the draft becomes the Court’s final opinion, it will end the constitutional protection of abortion access, first established by the 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade. If that happens, decisions about abortion access will fall to the states. Even recognizing that this leak is not yet the settled opinion of the Court, the news is heartbreaking. This leak suggests there could soon be a seismic shift around this issue, as federally protected abortion access—a fact of life in this country for nearly 50 years—reverts to a status quo not seen since before many Americans were born. The implications of this decision are enormous. 19 states will effectively ban abortion, immediately affecting access for more than 40 million women, and abortion rights will no longer be protected in a majority of states.

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Moving the Principles of Population Health Science to the Heart of Public Health Practice | Longwood

ABSTRACT

As noted by Frank et al. (2022), three recent epidemics – COVID-19, obesity and the health-related consequences of climate change – illustrate how public health has fallen short in applying its core underlying principles. Building on this work, I ask two questions: Why is it that the principles that can productively move public health forward have not influenced practice sufficiently to lead to a different response to emerging pandemics? What might we do to turn a corner and make these principles a foundational element of all that public health does? I offer a few thoughts on both these questions.