Racism is operating not only with respect to Covid-19 but also with respect to infant mortality, maternal mortality, obesity,” said a past president of the American Public Health Association.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday called racism a “serious threat” to public health, becoming the latest, and largest, U.S.-based health agency to single out racism as having a “profound and negative impact on communities of color” and contributing to disproportionate mortality rates among people of color.
“Confronting the impact of racism will not be easy,” the CDC’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said in a statement published on the agency’s website. “I know that we can do this if we work together. I certainly hope you will lean in and join me.”
