The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has taken a major step to combat systemic racism and the impact it has on Americans’ health. In a statement released Thursday, April 8, CDC director Rochelle P. Walensky announced that racism is now classified as a serious public health threat and explained brand new efforts by the CDC to prioritize health equality.
“What we know is this: racism is a serious public health threat that directly affects the well-being of millions of Americans,” Walensky says in her statement. “As a result, it affects the health of our entire nation.”
Walensky explains that the systemic racism she’s talking about is not just discrimination against a single group or person, but “the structural barriers that impact racial and ethnic groups differently to influence where a person lives, where they work, where their children play, and where they worship and gather in community.”
Racism is a serious public health threat. The new CDC initiative is not just about the color of your skin but also about where you live, work, pray, & where your children play. All of these things feed into people’s health and their opportunities for health. https://t.co/hXWnqtqsei
— Mandy K. Cohen, MD, MPH (@CDCDirector) April 8, 2021
The decision to classify racism as a public health threat was partly motivated by vast racial inequalities highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the most recent CDC data, Black people are nearly two times as likely as white people to die from the virus. American Indian and Alaska Native people are nearly four times as likely to be hospitalized. Additionally, Hispanic people account for the highest percentage of COVID-19 hospitalizations in all four major census regions of the country.
A new @CDCMMWR shows the percentage of hospitalizations for #COVID19 was highest for Hispanic patients across each region of the US, underscoring the importance of identifying and addressing factors that contribute to COVID-19 related disparities. https://t.co/PS0ZTvmlIZ pic.twitter.com/Rd47lMjmRZ
— CDC (@CDCgov) April 12, 2021
While race is not the root cause of increased hospitalizations or deaths, the CDC explains race and ethnicity are often linked to other systemic issues that negatively affect health outcomes, such as:
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Equal access to health care.
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Socioeconomic status.
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Virus exposure due to occupation. People of color are more likely to work in hospitality, retail and healthcare jobs impacted by the virus. A report by the Economic Policy Institute shows nearly one in six frontline workers is Black.
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Black and Hispanic workers also have the highest rates of unemployment linked to the pandemic.
The pandemic didn’t create these systemic inequalities, and it isn’t the only reason for the CDC’s decision to declare racism a public health threat. In Walensky’s statement, she notes the pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated existing inequalities that have impacted communities of color for decades. “Over generations, these structural inequities have resulted in stark racial and ethnic health disparities that are severe, far-reaching and unacceptable,” she says.
In response to the threat, the CDC has launched a new web portal called Racism and Health that is designed to be a hub for public health and science information related to race. Additionally, Walensky has instructed all offices of the CDC to conduct studies on the impact of race and other social factors on health outcomes and develop interventions to address any disparities.
The CDC is not the first American medical group to speak out about the damaging impact of systemic racism. In November 2020, the American Medical Association acknowledged racism as a threat to public health and pledged to create new policies to address racial bias in medicine. The American Public Health Association reports 194 other public health entities across the U.S. have done the same.
The CDC’s declaration is an important step forward in the battle against systemic racism, but it will take the effort of multiple public health officials, organizations and leaders to make a real difference.
In her statement, Walensky acknowledges the hard work ahead. “Confronting the impact of racism will not be easy,” she says. “I know that we can meet this challenge. I know that we can create an America where all people have the opportunity to live a healthy life when we each take responsibility and work together.”
