The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the dire consequences of inequities in America’s health care. According to the COVID Tracking Project, African Americans die from COVID-19 at rates more than 1.5 times their share of the population, while Hispanics, Latinos, Native American and Alaskan Natives share of death and sickness is disproportionate to their population in the majority of states with sufficient data.

In the next webinar of the College of Arts and Sciences’ (A&S) yearlong series, “Racism in America,” panelists will focus on the impact that racism has on access to healthcare and health outcomes. The March 29, 7 p.m. event, in partnership with Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell Center for Health Equity and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is free and open to the public; registration is required.

Moderated by Akilah Johnson, national reporter for The Washington Post, the webinar will feature four Cornell faculty experts discussing the ways that inequality and racism impact the American medical system and how these disparities affect both economic wellbeing and the health of minority populations.

“Our upcoming webinar on racism and health touches on the foundational issues of democracy and citizenship in the United States. It will address the impact of racism on access to mental, physical, and emotional health due to the ways inequality both determines and disrupts access to healthcare,” said Noliwe Rooks, the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor in Africana studies and director of the American Studies Program in A&S. “In the midst of a pandemic where racism impacts access to vaccines, the likelihood of having attended the funeral of a family member, and access to in-person education, there is no better time for our faculty to engage with this topic.”

Johnson joined The Washington Post in 2021 as a national reporter exploring the effect of racism and social inequality on health. In prior roles at ProPublica and the Boston Globe she covered the intersection of health, race, politics, and immigration. She shared a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and was Pulitzer finalist as a member of the Globe's Spotlight Team investigation into racism in Boston. Her reporting has won a number of other national awards including NABJ Salute to Excellence Awards, ONA's Knight Award for Public Service, and a National Headliner Award for Journalistic Innovation. Before her time at the Globe, Akilah covered education and public safety for the South Florida Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. She is a graduate of the University of Miami and alumna of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University.

The panelists for the March 29 webinar are:

Jamila Michener is an associate professor in the department of government in the College of Arts & Sciences and is co-director of the Cornell Center for Health Equity. Her research focuses on poverty, racial inequality and public policy in the United States. She is on the Board of Trustees for the Center for Healthcare Strategies, and is a member of the Community Advisory Board for the Rural Health Equity Training Collaborative at Cayuga Medical Center. Her recent book, Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism and Unequal Politics (Cambridge University Press) examines how Medicaid--the nation’s public health insurance program for people with low income--affects democratic citizenship. Unpacking how federalism transforms Medicaid beneficiaries’ interpretations of government and structures their participation in politics, Fragmented Democracy assesses American political life from the vantage point(s) of those who are living in or near poverty, (disproportionately) Black or Latino, and reliant on a federated government for vital resources.Jerel Ezell, an assistant professor in the Africana Studies & Research Center government in the College of Arts & Sciences, is a mixed-methods researcher and Fulbright Scholar. His research focuses on health disparities and social inequality in post-industrial communities, exploring the tapestry of political, economic and cultural factors which contribute to inequities. His work investigates how impacts from steady patterns of deindustrialization have been felt especially hard in Black and lower-income populations, where community disinvestment, environmental degradation, crime, and diminished public health--acting as virtual "aftershocks"--has often followed the exit of prominent industries, particularly those in the automobile, steel production and agriculture sectors. His current research projects focus on macrosocial factors contributing to the Flint Water Crisis and patterns of opioid use in the industrial Midwest and the northeastern United States.Susana Morales is associate professor of clinical medicine and vice chair for diversity at Weill Cornell Medicine. She was born in New York City and obtained her AB in Biology at Harvard University and her medical degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She trained in Internal Medicine at the Presbyterian Hospital in the City of New York. She joined the faculty of the Division of General Medicine at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in 1989, and joined the Weill Cornell/New York Presbyterian Hospital faculty in 1998. She is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, an Associate Director of the Housestaff Training Program, and Vice Chair for Diversity for the Department of Medicine. In 2018, she became the Principal Investigator/Director of the Diversity Center of Excellence, which is part of the Cornell Center for Health Equity, upon receiving a grant of $2.7 million from HRSA. The Diversity Center of Excellence's mission is to enhance diversity in medicine, and to promote health equity through research, education, advocacy, and community engagement. She has an active primary care practice. Morales has served on the Council of the Society of General Internal Medicine, as a member of the Advisory Boards of the Commonwealth Fund's “Bettering the Health of Minority Americans” program and of the National Hispanic Medical Association. She has served on the Boards of Directors of Body Positive, Public Health Solutions, and the Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation. She is a board member of the United Hospital Fund, where she chairs the Program Committee, and of the Latino Commission on AIDS.

Neil Lewis, Jr., is assistant professor of communication in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and assistant professor of communications research in medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. His research examines how people’s social contexts and identities influence their motivation to pursue their goals, and their success in goal pursuit efforts. He directs the Motivation and Goal Pursuit Lab, which studies these processes most often in the domains of education and health. One goal of the lab is to use the knowledge gained from this research to inform interventions and policies to improve outcomes and reduce social disparities.The final webinar in the Racism in America series, later this spring, will address “Race and the Economy.”

Co-hosted by the American Studies Program, the “Racism in America” series is supported by Alumni Affairs and Development; Diversity Alumni Programs; and powered by eCornell. Other colleges have been and will be partners on the series’ other webinars.