Racial Violence: A public health issue that festers without systemic and cultural treatment

By Dennis Archambault

Decades ago, the American Public Health Association declared violence a public health issue. The U.S. Surgeon General identified it as a public health emergency in 1992. It remains so today, especially as it pertains to the lethal force of civil authority on people of color. The American Public Health Association has formally identified “police violence” as a public health issue. The violent nature of some who enforce the law, and the social systems that condone and support them, infects all of us in a way that the coronavirus does. But it debilitates us in different ways. It has plagued African Americans since 1619, and it sickens all Americans of conscience today, consciously and unconsciously.

Like other public health problems, brutal violence needs to be addressed through systemic change, both upstream and midstream. We can implement change midstream now, while legislative, regulatory, and legal systems address the issue. There is an abundance of rhetoric and ongoing public outcry. But change is a slow, deliberate process.

Change begins with recognizing racism as a public health problem, notes Mike Rafferty, president and CEO of New Detroit, in a Detroit Free Press commentary (https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2020/06/02/george-floyd-racism-police-brutality/5308767002/?utm_source=native&utm_medium=capi_retrofit&utm_content=inapp&build=native-web_i_p). Rafferty quotes the American Medical Association’s (AMA) perspective: “Physical or verbal violence between law enforcement officers and the public, particularly among black and brown communities where these incidents are more prevalent and pervasive, is a critical determinant of health and (the AMA) supports research into the public health consequences of these violent interactions.”

We need to understand why African Americans are dying at greater numbers than the population at large in the COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, we need to understand the disease that inflicts society, creating and reinforcing systems that allow police officers and individuals to kill African Americans. Racism is a disease that affects African Americans and people of color, but it is a societal disease that sickens us all. The healing is both the hard work of introspection and the population-based initiatives that dismantle and re-engineers the systems that perpetuate it.

Dennis Archambault is vice president of Public Affairs for Authority Health.