2 CCHEq directors discuss racism in U.S. health care in ‘Racism in America’ webinar
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the ways structural racism and inequality are “baked into” the American health care system, said Akilah Johnson, national reporter for the Washington Post, moderating “Racism in America: Health” on March 29.
During the webinar, four Cornell faculty members elaborated on ways the pandemic has shown race-based discrepancies in health care and health outcomes. The deeper, structural racism ultimately causing them is “embedded in the DNA of all our institutions,” said panelist Jamila Michener, associate professor of government in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) and co-director of the Cornell Center for Health Equity.
The webinar, attended by more than 1,000 people, was the fourth in the yearlong “Racism in America” series hosted by A&S and supported by Alumni Affairs and Development, eCornell and Diversity Alumni Programs. The Cornell Center for Health Equity, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), and Weill Cornell Medicine partnered on the event.
Joining Michener on the faculty panel were Jerel Ezell, assistant professor in the Africana Studies & Research Center (A&S); Neil Lewis Jr., assistant professor of communication (CALS) and assistant professor of communications research in medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine; and Susana Morales, associate professor of clinical medicine and vice chair for diversity in the Weill Department of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine.
“COVID-19 has illustrated the ways that structural racism impacts health. The racism embedded in the healthcare delivery system has magnified these things a thousand-fold,” said Morales, who is a principal investigator/director of Weill Cornell Medicine’s Diversity Center of Excellence, which operates under the auspices of the Cornell Center for Health Equity and has an active primary care practice. “Minority Americans have been more likely to be exposed to and infected by COVID-19 largely due to overrepresentation in low-wage essential work, more densely populated neighborhoods and homes.”
