Achieving Health Equity by Addressing Legacies of Racial Violence in Public Health Practice

• Author: Darrell Hudson
• Published date: 01 March 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/00027162211015932
• Date: 01 March 2021
• Subject Matter: Setting the Agenda

ANNALS, AAPSS, 694, March 2021 59

DOI: 10.1177/00027162211015932

Achieving

Health Equity

by Addressing

Legacies of

Racial Violence

in Public

Health Practice

By

DARRELL HUDSON

1015932ANN The Annals Of The American AcademyHealth Equity And Legacies Of Racial Violence

research-article2021

Health equity means that everyone, regardless of their

abilities, economic status, or race/ethnicity, has the

opportunity to reach their optimal level of health.

However, the inequitable distribution of resources,

power, and privilege in the United States means that

historically marginalized communities bear a dispro-

portionate burden of poor health and disease. The

COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the problem

for Black Americans: already bearing an unequal bur-

den of social, economic, and health inequities and

experiencing systemic racism in various sectors of

American life, Black Americans have been at even

greater risk of COVID-19 transmission and severity of

the disease. I use critical race theory (CRT) to show

how key social and historical factors fuel racial health

inequities. Further, I use key tenets of CRT to argue

that redressing historical legacies of racism cannot be

done without using a critical, race conscious lens and

lifting up the voices of Black people.

Keywords: critical race theory; Black Americans; health

inequities; community engagement; policy

The United States has been simultaneously

battling two epidemics, one novel and the

other familiar. The COVID-19 pandemic has

not only claimed the lives of more than five

hundred thousand Americans and counting, but

it has also disproportionately affected Black

people, both in terms of infection risk and bur-

den of disease (Diez Roux 2020; Gabriel etal.,

this volume). Concurrently, the tragic deaths of

unarmed Black people at the hands of police

and vigilantes across the country ignited a wave

of demonstrations in summer 2020, in what some

have called the summer of racial reckoning.

Darrell Hudson is an associate professor at the Brown

School at Washington University in St. Louis and holds

courtesy appointments with the Departments of

Psychiatry and Sociology. His career is dedicated to

the elimination of racial/ethnic health inequities. His

research agenda centers on social determinants of

health, particularly racism.

Correspondence: d.hudson@wustl.edu