Amid pandemic, students of color call out for health justice
23rd November 2020 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
American society needs to take ownership of the health problems facing people of color if it wants to find solutions to the medical crises caused by COVID-19 and other challenges. That mandate came from a group of students who participated in an American Heart Association online workshop on November 11.
The roundtable also centered around ways to strive for health justice and health equity for people of color, the poor and other underserved communities. Participants said recognition of the problems and how they were created must be followed by honest, frank evaluation and understanding of the cultural nuances that affect public health within different communities.
“Health justice is important because it gives everyone a fighting chance,” said Jahmel Fowler, and HBCU graduate and current graduate student at the University of Southern Indiana. “Nationalty, ethnicity and race can actually determine if you live or die.
“Health equality is when you give everyone the same opportunity and you try to make it even across the board,” Fowler added, “whereas health equity is where you try to level the playing field, and that is what we should be striving for because not everyone needs the same thing to achieve better health outcomes.”
Asja Woodard, a junior at Spelman College and recipient of one of the AHA’s 2020 HBCU Scholars fellowships, agreed, saying that these subjects can’t be ignored any longer. “Health justice is something that hasn’t been talked about enough and needs to be talked about more,” she said, “and now [during the COVID-19 crisis] is a good time to talk about it, because as we are seeing now, Black people are dying at higher rates, people of color are dying at higher rates and getting infected at higher rates and not just dying but [are also suffering because] COVID has long-term effects. It’s something that has to be faced.”
The Health Justice Roundtable was part of the American Heart Association’s EmPOWERED To Serve effort aimed at attacking the systemic racism and socioeconomic challenges that have prevented the achievement of health equity and justice across all demographic groups.
Issues such as educational opportunities, funding resources and a lack of individual empowerment were addressed, according to an AHA press release, “to inspire community transformation and to shed light on the health, racism and social injustices that impact people of color.”
The virtual forum was moderated by Angela Watson Charles, executive vice president of programming with iHeartMedia, who introduced the workshop by laying out its purpose.
“We’re here tonight because for far too long, structural barriers in society have led to a public health crisis that has taken a painful and unacceptable toll on the health and well being of people of color in this country,” Watson said.
The panel featured several of the AHA’s 2020 EmPOWERED Scholars, young students located in numerous diverse communities across the country as part of their studies and learning experiences. During the forum, the scholars provided their own unique assessments and goals in an effort to bring a diverse set of voices in the pursuit of health justice and equity.
The scholars included:
• Alana Barr, who founded the Junior Healthy Heart Coalition at Georgia Tech, a program that engages in community outreach in Atlanta;
• Katelyn France, a sophomore at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, whose experience growing up in a sparsely populated, educationally challenged indigenous community has informed her scholarly efforts;
• Lady Dorothy Avila Elli, a freshman at the University of Arizona, whose focus on impoverished and food insecure youth and families was spurred by her own youth;
• Ngoc Vuong, a student at Wichita State who works on community outreach in Wichita, Kansas, to address mental health and addiction challenges.
Other panelists featured several current and former participants of the Heart Association’s HBCU Scholars, such as Asja Woodard, a junior at Spelman College and 2020 award recipient; Jahmel Fowler, a 2018 recipient who graduated from Fisk University and is now preparing to start a doctoral program at the University of Southern Indiana; and Dontrez Johnson Jr., a 2019 HBCU Scholar who graduated from Tennessee State University and is currently working for Project Horseshoe Farms, a community health fellowship program in Greensboro, Ala.
Empathy and open-mindedness were two goals emphasized by the panelists, who encouraged healthcare aspirants to shed the prejudices and perceptions that one might have if they haven’t grown up in a diverse community or haven’t lived among people who are different from them.
“If you get rid of those implicit biases,” Johnson said, “you have a true judgment of your character and of another person’s character and culture as well, and that brings about equity. Overall, that’s how we can get rid of these things in our healthcare system and our educational system and to overall make the world a better place.”
The concept of cultural competency was also discussed, with panelists noting how important it is for health professionals to understand other people’s experiences and expand their own world views as a way to better treat a person and a community holistically.
Woodard underscored the need to “understand who the people are around you and how you can bridge the gaps that may be between you. That’s kind of what health justice is…and to do that, you have to be able to understand their culture and understand why people do the things they do.”
Beyond owning up to one’s own biases, skewed perceptions and inherent privilege, healthcare personnel and scholars need to master the art of listening to communities and hearing the concerns of underserved members of one’s community.
“One thing that’s been really critical as of late is understanding which voices to amplify and when to use your privileges [to do so],” France said. “It is so important to push these voices forward and to understand these issues from not only a personal standpoint, but also to amplify these critical voices, especially during times like these.”
Barr stressed the importance of elections and choosing leaders who truly care and are willing to keep an open mind and listen to different voices, opinions and experiences.
“We need to go and speak to citizens and speak to constituents directly and make sure we’re electing public officials who actually hold the same or similar ideologies,” she said. “We need to make sure that we’re actually communicating what we need [to our leaders] at whichever level [of government] it is, and we have to keep them accountable as well.”
Much of the discussion zeroed in on the lack of educational and mentoring opportunities available to young people of color. Panelists discussed how African-American scholars, from the very beginning, are discouraged to pursue careers in medicine and public health. They stressed how Black and indigenous students are often ignored by white professors who automatically assume the students aren’t worth the time or are incapable of succeeding.
Several forum participants said that because of this ostracizing and disconnection, young students of color can benefit from being in an educational environment in which they see people who look like themselves and who are willing to spend time with students, provide them with mentorship opportunities, help them prepare for medical school and encourage them to pursue careers in health and medical research.
The panelists specifically pointed toward the importance of and advantage of HBCUs and the role mentorship can play when it comes to improving educational opportunities and achievement.
Johnson said HBCUs still play a crucial role in educating and preparing Black students to go into their own communities and help people lead healthier, safer, longer lives. He added that youth who want to pursue such careers shouldn’t be deterred or discouraged.
“Whatever you put your mind to, go do it,” he said. “It’s never too late. You wake up every day, and the next day is not promised. Don’t take it for granted. Make it count. …Trials are not a test of faith. You have faith to go through the trials. Especially being a person of color, you’re going to have obstacles in the way. You’re going to face adversities. But it’s about how you face and overcome those adversities and the character you build and the mindset you develop during overcoming those adversities is what builds you ultimately.”
Along those same lines, Elli encouraged her peers and others aspiring to medical careers to take control of what they want to do, and aim to have a specific impact on community health.
“Empower yourself,” she said. “If you don’t have a seat at the table, make your own table. Make sure you are able to make an impact that way. …Try finding that space where if people haven’t achieved it before, because you can do it, you can be the first one. So try finding that inspiration for yourself.”
The workshop was held within the broader context of the COVID-19 pandemic and how people of color are being negatively affected by the coronavirus at much greater rates than whites. With the virus taking more Black lives every day and continuing to place more economic and psychological pressure and burden among communities of color, the forum participants said the urgency to address endemic health and medical problems has never been higher.
The panelists agreed that mental health and wellness plays a large part in people’s ability to adjust to and cope with the coronavirus and can’t be ignored or overlooked. Vuong, whose own work centers on mental health issues like depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and addiction, said mental health is part of the larger health crisis facing people of color, during the pandemic and down the road.
“Social determinants of health and structural, systemic barriers in general play a crucial role in the fact that Black and indigenous communities and other communities of color have less access to health care and mental health care, and when they do have access to health care and specifically mental health care, it’s of lower quality,” he said. “And as we know, lower quality health care in general often translates to poorer health outcomes for communities of color.”
Woodard, a woman of color, said the trauma and impact of COVID and other chronic health problems are deeply personal, because she sees suffering all around her, in her own environment. That drives her to establish personal, caring, knowledgeable connections with the people around her, something that often isn’t being done in communities of color.
“For me, I see it every day in my own family and in my own community, and it’s different and more important for me,” she said. “It hits closer to home, and it’s what has made me want to get my medical degree and then work in my underserved community.
“I want to be able to become a familiar face to my patients,” she added. “I want to be able to have that trust, that patient-provider relationship that a lot of people lack because there’s not enough health equity. …I want to be able to look out for them.”
This article originally published in the November 23, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
