scholarly journals Art, Anti-Racism and Health Equity: “Don’t Ask Me Why, Ask Me How!”

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-380
Author(s):  
Derek M. Griffith ◽  
Andrea R. Semlow

Objective: One of the fundamental chal­lenges in research on, and the practice of, anti-racism is helping people open their minds to new possibilities and new ways of thinking.Design: This commentary illustrates how art can help people unlearn misinformation and narrow ways of thinking while enhanc­ing flexibility that allows people to think cre­atively about efforts to eliminate or mitigate the health effects of racism.Results: Historically, art has been a critical foundation of the history of protest and struggle to achieve equity in the United States and across the globe. Whether music, poems, paintings or other forms of creative expression, art has been at the core of efforts to express emotion, communicate difficult concepts, spur action and change what seems impossible. Art has been particularly important in illustrating and helping to facilitate how people understand what racism is, how it feels to experience privilege or oppression and exploring the implications of policies and practices that affect health indirectly or directly. Yet, art remains underutilized in anti-racism educa­tion, training and organizing efforts within public health. This commentary includes several arts-based examples to illustrate how art can facilitate insights, observations and strategies to address racism and achieve health equity.Conclusion: Art can be an important tool to facilitate moving past intellectual arguments that seek to explain, justify and excuse racism. Art may be particularly important in efforts to illuminate how racism operates in organizational or institutional contexts and to communicate hope, resilience, and strength amid what seems impossible. Ethn Dis. 2020;30(3):373-380; doi:10.18865/ed.30.3.373

Author(s):  
Robyn M Nadolny ◽  
Ashley C Kennedy ◽  
James M Rodgers ◽  
Zachary T Vincent ◽  
Hannah Cornman ◽  
...  

Abstract During September–December 2018, 25 live ticks were collected on-post at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in a home with a history of bat occupancy. Nine ticks were sent to the Army Public Health Center Tick-Borne Disease Laboratory and were identified as Carios kelleyi (Cooley and Kohls, 1941), a species that seldom bites humans but that may search for other sources of blood meals, including humans, when bats are removed from human dwellings. The ticks were tested for numerous agents of human disease. Rickettsia lusitaniae was identified by multilocus sequence typing to be present in two ticks, marking the first detection of this Rickettsia agent in the United States and in this species of tick. Two other Rickettsia spp. were also detected, including an endosymbiont previously associated with C. kelleyi and a possible novel Rickettsia species. The potential roles of C. kelleyi and bats in peridomestic Rickettsia transmission cycles warrant further investigation.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Brooke Lerner ◽  
David C. Cone ◽  
Eric S. Weinstein ◽  
Richard B. Schwartz ◽  
Phillip L. Coule ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTMass casualty triage is the process of prioritizing multiple victims when resources are not sufficient to treat everyone immediately. No national guideline for mass casualty triage exists in the United States. The lack of a national guideline has resulted in variability in triage processes, tags, and nomenclature. This variability has the potential to inject confusion and miscommunication into the disaster incident, particularly when multiple jurisdictions are involved. The Model Uniform Core Criteria for Mass Casualty Triage were developed to be a national guideline for mass casualty triage to ensure interoperability and standardization when responding to a mass casualty incident. The Core Criteria consist of 4 categories: general considerations, global sorting, lifesaving interventions, and individual assessment of triage category. The criteria within each of these categories were developed by a workgroup of experts representing national stakeholder organizations who used the best available science and, when necessary, consensus opinion. This article describes how the Model Uniform Core Criteria for Mass Casualty Triage were developed.(Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2011;5:129-137)


2020 ◽  
pp. 223-226
Author(s):  
Dan Royles

This chapter considers what it means to write the history of a crisis that has not yet ended, and briefly traces connections among the stories told in previous chapters. It connects these stories to the ongoing fight for health equity in the United States, including the author’s involvement in the fight to preserve the Affordable Care Act in the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency. Finally, it compares HIV/AIDS to climate change, as both are existential crises that will disproportionately affect poor communities of color.


2003 ◽  
Vol 10 (suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 225-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie H. Levison

From biblical times to the modern period, leprosy has been a disease associated with stigma. This mark of disgrace, physically present in the sufferers' sores and disfigured limbs, and embodied in the identity of a 'leper', has cast leprosy into the shadows of society. This paper draws on primary sources, written in Spanish, to reconstruct the social history of leprosy in Puerto Rico when the United States annexed this island in 1898. The public health policies that developed over the period of 1898 to the 1930s were unique to Puerto Rico because of the interplay between political events, scientific developments and popular concerns. Puerto Rico was influenced by the United States' priorities for public health, and the leprosy control policies that developed were superimposed on vestiges of the colonial Spanish public health system. During the United States' initial occupation, extreme segregation sacrificed the individual rights and liberties of these patients for the benefit of society. The lives of these leprosy sufferers were irrevocably changed as a result.


2018 ◽  
Vol 378 (18) ◽  
pp. 1725-1733 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Apelberg ◽  
Shari P. Feirman ◽  
Esther Salazar ◽  
Catherine G. Corey ◽  
Bridget K. Ambrose ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 110 (4) ◽  
pp. 470-477
Author(s):  
Paul Braff

There has been relatively little published on National Negro Health Week, and what has been published has often focused on physicians, nurses, or women. This article offers a brief but comprehensive overview of the organization and health emphases of nonmedical African American leaders on issues of health and explains how health concepts made their way to ordinary African Americans. In addition, in this article, I argue that the current National Public Health Week campaign might be best seen as a metamorphosis of National Negro Health Week because they share many similarities in practice and direction. The article’s main message is that the United States has a long history of a “National Health Week”; that these Weeks support the interests of subjugated groups by race, ethnicity, or class; and that these Weeks have worked to empower these groups by providing them with basic health knowledge to improve their health without needing to consult a physician.


Author(s):  
Pesach Malovany ◽  
Ya'akov Amidror ◽  
Amnon Lipkin-Shahak ◽  
Kevin M. Woods

This book describes the history of the Iraqi Army from its establishment in 1921 until its collapse in 2003 in the war against the Coalition Forces, the core of which was a highly intensive 24-year period under the leadership of Saddam Hussein. It analyzes the development and activities of this army, and focuses on the major wars in which it participated during Saddam’s regime: the prolonged war against Iran (1980-1988) and the two wars against the Coalition Forces led by the United States (1991 and 2003), as well as the wars against Israel and the Kurds in earlier periods. The book is based mostly on Iraqi sources—Newspapers and other media means, books and documents, and presents all this mostly from the Iraqi perspective. Its major innovation lies in its presenting this topic to the reader—including all the elements of the construction of the Iraqi fighting force, its war strategies, its functioning on all levels (strategic, operative and tactical), its forces and branches, its command and many other subjects—in a comprehensive, detailed manner,. My experience in dealing with military issues in the Middle East during my long service with the Israeli Military Intelligence helped me very much in dealing with this huge Army, and to understand its concepts, its historical roots and the way it was conducting its war, The Wars of Modern Babylon.


2019 ◽  
pp. 35-40
Author(s):  
Leo Huberman

This reprise of "The Debs Way"—the text of an address Huberman delivered at the Debs Centennial Meeting held at the Fraternal Clubhouse in New York City on November 28, 1955—not only reminds us of the importance of Eugene Debs to the history of socialism in the United States, but also brings out some of the core beliefs of Huberman's own approach to socialism. Today's conditions are of course vastly different from when Huberman wrote this, more than sixty years ago. There is now a resurgence of the left in the United States, but the basic principles that Huberman derived from Debs remain relevant.


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