Category: Uncategorized

By JPB Fellow Marccus D. Hendricks Past studies in public health have demonstrated an association between disease and poor sanitation, such as illnesses from exposure to sewage-laden waters. Modern sanitary infrastructures were an innovation that transformed how we mitigate waterborne risks. However, failure to maintain and rehabilitate these systems over the years, as well as changing environmental conditions, have created some pre-modern circumstances in cities across the world including Baltimore,…

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Energy efficiency programs and renewable energy can help address some of the disparities African Americans and other minorities face from fossil fuels, advocates say. But just any clean energy program won’t do. “We know that communities of color are significantly underrepresented, particularly in places where critical decisions are made,” said Fisayo Fadelu, chief financial officer and general counsel for Pecan Street Inc., a clean energy and water research and development…

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DeVilbiss et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2020;000(0):000–000) have taken on the noble and worthy cause of improving diversity, inclusion, representation, and participation across the Society for Epidemiologic Research (SER) membership—a reflection/microcosm of society. The objective of this commentary is to underscore the importance of diversity and to offer initiative ideas, which should be centered around inequity stemming from the widespread historical and contemporary maldistribution of power (e.g., decision-making) and resources…

Continue reading “Food for Thought: Opportunities to Improve Diversity, Inclusion, Representation, and Participation in Epidemiology”

In Atlanta, it’s getting hot and traffic is coming back, which means air quality will go downhill. Still, if it seemed like this spring the air was better while so many people were sheltering in place, that’s because it was, at least in some respects. In March, people started staying home because of the coronavirus. In April, it became mandatory statewide. And that had a dramatic effect on traffic. On…

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Authorities shrugging off risk—or ordering everyone to mask up. The virus surging in locales that dropped their guards too soon. Death rates that cut along racial lines, impacting African Americans with particular ferocity. What might sound like recent news stories from the COVID-19 pandemic describe the 1918 influenza pandemic just as well, according to a new study from a University of Maryland School of Public Health researcher, published this week…

Continue reading “Different Viruses, Similar Outcomes: Tracing the Common Thread of Inequality Between Pandemics a Century Apart”

IRP Study Examines Overlooked Contributor to Racial Health Disparities Recent news coverage of the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, along with statistics reporting startlingly disproportionate death rates among black Americans infected with COVID-19, have made it clear that racial biases can be a matter of life and death. Meanwhile, it can be easy to overlook other, more subtle ways that discrimination can affect health, such as new…

Continue reading “Facing Daytime Discrimination Linked to Sleep Struggles”

We constantly hear the narrative that climate change impacts us all. And while that’s true, the issue is disproportionately impacting people of color, especially Black, Latino, and Native Americans. And when it comes to environmental justice, we just aren’t talking about social equity enough. A decade ago, Grist reporter Alan Durning wrote on the topic of climate change and race, “It’s 2010. Some things have changed; others have not. Racial discrimination has…

Continue reading “Fighting climate change isn’t just an environmental issue — it’s a social justice issue too”

National Science Foundation awards important grant to local researchers In Colorado, Senate Bill 181 (SB19-181) is changing the way oil and gas development is regulated, and one of the main effects of the bill is a large shift towards increased local control over siting decisions. In a first of its kind study, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded researchers in Colorado a $730,000 grant to examine the impact of the bill and whether…

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By JPB Fellow Jennifer D. Roberts The historical and contemporary use of white privilege for the exclusion of black bodies from green spaces in the United States Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of landscape architecture, may not have envisioned black bodies, like Christian Cooper, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Ahmaud Arbery, enjoying a leisure day in New York City’s bucolic Central Park when he designed the space in 1857 to…

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JPB Fellow Annie Belcourt described Native American populations in the USA as having lives that are “challenging and short”. Globally, across countries and populations, Indigenous peoples face a greater burden of disease than non-Indigenous peoples, including cardiovascular disease and HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, and have higher infant and maternal mortality and lower life expectancy. Their health is impacted by epigenetic stressors of generational oppression and violence, including disproportionate numbers…

Continue reading “Indigenous populations: left behind in the COVID-19 response”