Abstract
Introduction to: "the long fight for health justice: Movements, data, and transformational pedagogy"
Nancy Krieger, PhD
Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA
APHA 2023 Annual Meeting and Expo
In accord with our Spirit of 1848 theme for APHA 2023 -- Contesting structural assaults on public health while building anew: radical alternatives for health justice – the invited speakers for our Spirit of 1848 integrative session will tackle these issues in relation to the core foci of the Spirit of 1848 Caucus: social history of public health, politics of public health data, progressive pedagogy, and activism for health justice. Framed by the introduction to the session, topics to be addressed include: (1) histories of fighting for data and power for workers’ health and environmental justice; (2) building radical institutions to expose injustice and generate data for health justice, including in relation to Indigenous health and data sovereignty; and (3) transformational pedagogy about the roots of health inequities, especially in relation to power relations & systems jointly involving social class, racism. genders and sexuality. The objective is to provide insights into how diverse social movements and advocates have analyzed and countered structural assaults on the people’s health in myriad arenas, informed by their visions of radical alternatives for health justice. Sustaining the immediate work at hand requires embracing a long view of the mutigenerational, multifaceted work for social justice & public health to which so many contribute. It also requires, as stated in a 1980 essay on “The politics of nuclear disarmament,” written by the critical UK scholar and activist Raymond Williams (1921-1988), “making hope practical, rather than despair convincing.”
Advocacy for health and health education Occupational health and safety Public health or related education Public health or related laws, regulations, standards, or guidelines Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines Public health or related public policy
Abstract
Sick and tired of being sick and tired
David Rosner, PhD
Columbia Univ HIST SPH, New York, NY
APHA 2023 Annual Meeting and Expo
“I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” So declared Fannie Lou Hamer, the iconic organizer of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, in her famous December 1964 speech at a Harlem rally with Malcolm X. The speech detailed both the exploitation of Blacks as they worked ten- or eleven- hour days picking cotton for a mere three dollars per day and how the consequences of such treatment in disease, suffering, and death were woven into the fabric of the state’s history and Jim Crow. It was a history that, in Hamer’s words, was more than “a little sickening.”
Attentive observers writing about the experiences of workers in the United States of whatever race, ethnicity, gender, or geographic region have, with good reason, similarly remarked on the sometimes enormous disparities in health and well-being among different classes, races and social groups. At their core, diseases, disabilities, and deaths, as well as psychic distress of all sorts that may have physical manifestations, are about the violence that is done to the human body. It is the story of damage done, either in the form of Covid-19 attacking the body, exposure to toxic chemicals in the workplace or in the wider environment, or the physical harm done to people by machinery, automobiles, guns or the whip. This paper provides a broader and more inclusive view of what medical and public health history can be: a real lens into the social, racial, political and economic history of the United States.
Diversity and culture Environmental health sciences Ethics, professional and legal requirements Occupational health and safety Social and behavioral sciences
Abstract
Gender-related variables in health research: Transformative research possibilities at the national institutes of health
Elizabeth Barr, Ph.D.
NIH Office of Research on Women's Health, Bethesda, MD
APHA 2023 Annual Meeting and Expo
As the nation’s largest health research funder, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is uniquely positioned to engage in conversations around the transformative possibilities of inclusive, accessible, and rigorous public health data. NIH initiatives such as UNITE (Collins et al, Cell, 2021) , the Community Engagement Alliance Against COVID-19 Disparities (https://covid19community.nih.gov/) and Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society program (https://commonfund.nih.gov/compass), as well as NIH efforts to end harassment in biomedical research, demonstrate NIH’s active commitment to structural, data-driven interventions. Gender is a social and structural variable that encompasses multiple domains, each of which influences health: gender identity and expression, gender roles and norms, gendered power relations, and gender equality and equity. As such, gender has far-reaching impacts on health. Research and data on gender-related variables are critical components of advancing the NIH vision for women’s health of a world in which every woman – including cisgender, transgender, and gender diverse women – as well as individuals assigned female at birth, receives evidence-based care tailored to their unique needs, circumstances, and goals. Through a discussion of NIH efforts to (1) support and expand collection of appropriate, accurate gender-related variables, and (2) advance intersectional research that address the multiple domains of gender, this presentation will explore transformative research possibilities for gender-related research at and through NIH.
Diversity and culture Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines Public health or related public policy Public health or related research Social and behavioral sciences
Abstract
Advancing health equity from a root cause approach using naccho’s roots of health inequity online course
Jasmine Akuffo, MPH and Brianna Aldridge, MPH
NACCHO, Washington, DC
APHA 2023 Annual Meeting and Expo
In ongoing efforts to combat health inequity and its root causes through a social justice lens, the National Association for County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) and colleagues prepare to launch our revised Roots of Health Inequity online course. This is a free and effective learning tool to enable public health practitioners to act more directly upon the root causes of health inequity. The updated course is set to launch in 2024 with new and revised units that reflect recent developments in the field and provide deeper analysis on what health equity requires. We can use the Roots course as an example of transformational pedagogies over ten years in the making. More specifically, we can examine the importance of a learning tool that has sparked multi-faceted dialogues on the evolution of public health practice and its role in social justice movements. The course is supplemented by a facilitator’s guide to encourage ongoing dialogue throughout and beyond the course. Our pedagogical approach ensures users are learners and cultivators of knowledge set to steer the culture of equity and social justice from within their own organizations. Given its broad reach even now, the Roots course is poised to continue elevating the conversation around health equity, prompting more effective and collaborative strategizing for the transformation necessary for our current and future time. In support of the evolution of public health practice, NACCHO is thrilled to provide the Roots of Health Inequity as an example of what a transformational pedagogy can establish.
Diversity and culture Other professions or practice related to public health Social and behavioral sciences Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health