American Medical Association recognizes racism as a public health threat

BY PAUL JUNOR

In an historic move, the American Medical Association (AMA) has seen it fit to adopt a new policy that recognizes racism as a public health threat as reported in a press release on November 16th, 2020 (AMA-assn.org). This adoption came after its Board of Trustees met in June 2020 and, “Acknowledged the health consequences of violent police interactions and denounced violent racism as an urgent threat to public health, pledging action to confront systemic racism, racial injustice and police brutality.”

This came after the death of George Floyd on May 23rd, 2020.

The approval of this policy, which is directed at all manner of racism, mandated that the AMA initiate specific steps to fight against racism:

• Acknowledging the harm caused by racism and unconscious bias within medical research and health care
• Identifying tactics to counter racism and mitigate its health effects
• Encouraging medical education curricula to promote a greater understanding of the topic
• Supporting external policy development and funding for researching racism’s health risks and damages
• Working to prevent influences of racism and bias in health technology innovation

The AMA has taken a proactive approach to looking at structural and systemic racism prior to 2020. In a press release on June 13th, 2018 at its Annual Meeting, it revealed a bold plan towards health equity. It presented a strategic framework, which focused on accomplishing maximal health and adopts a holistic approach focusing on mental and behavioural health. This framework includes the following:

• Advocate for health care access, research and data collection
• Promote equity in care
• Increase health workforce diversity and cultural awareness competency
• Influence determinants of health
• Voice and model commitment to health equity

In addition, the AMA announced on May 14th, 2019 in a press release that it had appointed its first health equity officer, Dr Alethia Maybank who is responsible for, “AMA Center for Health Equity which will work to embed health equity across the organization, so that health equity, becomes part of the: practice, action, innovation and organization performance and outcomes.”

The press release also stated that, “AMA is committed to collaborating with stakeholders to confront the issue of racism within our society. We continue to urge others leading health organizations to also take up the mantle of intolerance for racism as it pushes upstream to dismantle racism across all of health care driving the future of medicine toward anti-racism.”

In a press release on November 16th, 2020, AMA Board member, Willarda V. Edwards states, “The AMA recognizes that racism negatively impacts and exacerbates health inequities among historically marginalized communities. Without systemic and structural level change, health inequities will continue to exist, and the overall health of the nation will suffer.”

He adds that, “Declaring racism as an urgent public health threat is a step in the right direction toward advancing equity in medicine and public health, while creating pathways for truth, healing and reconciliation.”

The adoption of this new policy by the AMA is essential because, “Studies show historically marginalized populations in the U.S have: shorter lifespans, greater public and mental illness burden, earlier onset and aggressive progression of disease, higher maternal and infant mortality and less access to health care.”

The effects of racism have serious, pernicious and long-lasting effects on mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health. The new policy describes the various forms of racism as:

• Systemic racism: structural and legalized system that results in differential access to goods and services, including health care services
• Cultural racism: negative and harmful stereotypes portrayed in cultural shared media and experiences.
• Interpersonal racism: implicit self-explicit racial prejudice, indicating explicitly expressed racist beliefs and implicitly held racist attitudes and actions based upon or resulting from these prejudices.