The Chatham County Board of Health voted Monday to declare racism as an “ongoing public health crisis” and also pledged its commitment in working to mitigate associated health disparities.
“As members of the North Carolina, Chatham County Board of Health, it is our stated purpose to identify factors that adversely affect health outcomes, formulate plans to address these factors, and to ultimately negate their effect on the health of Chatham County residents,” the unanimously approved statement read. “It is an irrefutable fact that race and socio-economic status have innumerable influences on health outcomes. This is evident in a multitude of statistics in Chatham County, and throughout the State, including, but not limited to, the disproportionally high COVID-19 case percentage of Chatham County Latino community members, the decreased life expectancy of African American men, and the suboptimal birth outcomes of African American women.”
The adoption of this statement follows the board’s discussion at its June 22 meeting regarding its role in promoting equity and diversity. Originally on the board’s agenda for that meeting under “New business,” the board referred to a letter read during the public input session by Karinda Roebuck, the co-chairperson of CORE — Chatham Organizing for Racial Equity and the Chatham Health Alliance Equity Committee. In her statement, Roebuck called on the board to name and take seriously the threat of structural racism on public health.
At the time, the board also referred to a letter Chatham County Commissioner Karen Howard wrote to the community regarding the coronavirus pandemic and George Floyd’s death at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis. In the board’s subsequent discussion, members suggested writing their own statement rather than just endorsing Howard’s letter. Questions about writing a statement that addressed concerns in an apolitical way were also raised.
There was no formal motion to write the statement, but board members Lewis Lampiris, John Kessler and Stephanie Freese volunteered to draft one on behalf of the board with Interim Health Director Michael Zelek. Later, Karen Barbee, who was not present at the June 22 meeting, also volunteered to join efforts in drafting the statement.
“We know about those disparities; I mean, that’s not rocket science,” Lampiris said at the time, in favor of declaring racism as a public health crisis. “One of the major factors that has led to those disparities are issues of structural racism — so we’re just putting that in there. We can talk about diet, nutrition and healthy foods but bottom line, it’s structures that are in place that are keeping people oppressed. So it’s not a political statement, it’s just an honest affirmation of a condition people living under that we want to eliminate.”
After Carol Reitz-Barlow, the board’s chairperson, read the drafted statement Monday, Lampiris said the statement was “really great” and proposed cleaning up the second to last sentence to include more specific concerns of discrimination in Chatham.
“We, the Chatham County Board of Health, pledge to work with governing bodies in the County, and our local partners on anti-racism initatives, review the Health Department’s policies, practices, and services to address concerns of discrimination related to structural racism, access to care, affordable housing, and community education,” the updated sentence read.
Following those suggestions, Kessler suggested changing all the phrases of “systemic racism” to “structural racism,” to be consistent with CORE’s language and original letter to the health board in June. Casey Hilliard, the department’s interim director of health promotion and policy division, asked board members what the hope for the statement was, specifically referencing the strategic plan she presented at the beginning of the meeting.
Several board members mentioned increasing awareness of structural inequalities, with hopes to eventually offer educational resources regarding those disparities. The group decided not to try and include specific language about what led to such inequalities, with the focus on first recognizing structural racism as a problem with this statement.
“Hopefully a year from now, we’ll be writing a different kind of statement,” Lampiris said before making a motion to adopt the statement as revised at the meeting.
“If I can just say, it’s just kind of getting the ball rolling in a sense,” Barbee added.
The board’s final statement, distributed to stakeholders Tuesday morning, reflected this sentiment.
“It is not enough to simply declare structural racism a public health crisis. Measures must be taken to address the root causes and secondary influences if we hope to succeed,” the statement said, reflecting the desire of board members to release educational curriculum in the future. “These actions represent the beginning of our work. We pledge to be responsive to identifying new needs. We remain goal oriented and will continuously, and objectively monitor the progress of our efforts.”
The board’s next meeting will take place at 6 p.m. on Sept. 28. No formal motion was proposed on Monday to monitor the board’s efforts, but multiple board members on the call expressed a commitment to continued discussion regarding structural racism and health equity.
Reporter Hannah McClellan can be reached at hannah@chathamnr.com.