Health Equity

A nurse writes on a vial of blood taken from a man who was included in the Tuskegee syphilis study in Alabama, circa 1950.

Understanding Black Distrust of Medicine

Joel D. Howell

Using the bodies of African Americans without consent is a dark part of US medical history and part of a much larger issue in this country. Even if these widely documented—and incredibly gruesome—experimentations had never happened, the underlying racism that led us to permit such atrocities must still be addressed.

A police car pulls up outside a home, the tenant stands in the open front door

Systemic Racism, Policing, and Public Health Advocacy

It can take a long time to develop new policy, and some advocacy roads lead to dead ends. But good advocacy work always makes a difference. As racism, policing, and police reform were becoming the national public health story of the summer, student leaders led a remote advocacy initiative to continue bringing public health insights to the discourse.

Illustration of community behavior and measurements of various social determinants of health

Undergraduate Students Discuss COVID-19 Impacts on Social Determinants of Health

Social determinants of health are key influences in shaping health outcomes. With this in mind, a group of six undergraduate students from the University of Michigan School of Public Health came together to publish a paper on how the COVID-19 pandemic will impact various social determinants of health as we look toward the future and the virus continues to spread.