Bending the Arc to Health Equity: Social Justice and the People's Health

The essence of public health is the prevention of preventable suffering and the creation and promotion of a world in which all can truly thrive. Hence, by definition, public health must be dedicated to the prevention of health inequities -- unjust, unfair and preventable inequities in rates of disease and death across societal groups.

Dr. Krieger will first offer a framing of health inequities in their current and historical context, and, drawing on the ecosocial theory of disease distribution, articulate why we would do well to conceptualize health inequities as embodied history.

Empirical examples that will be discussed, which link history, place and health inequities, pertain to: the historical contingency of health inequities in the U.S. in relation to premature mortality, non-smoking mortality, and medically preventable mortality; Jim Crow and infant death; abortion and infant death; and the spatial patterning of health inequities.

Speaker: Nancy Krieger, Harvard School of Public Health