Dr. Camara Jones Uncovers the Relationship Between Racism and Health

Most people are aware of the social harms of racism, but few have done research like Dr. Camara Jones on the impact of racism on the health and well-being of its victims.

Jones is the research director on social determinants of health and equity at the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. The center is a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.

Her lecture on social determinants was given March 4th at the Fanning Institute and focused on identifying key issues that create and perpetuate health disparities among the races.

“In this country, we have for a long time thought of our individual behaviors as the main determinants of health,” said Jones.But encouraging individuals to adopt healthier habits is not the key to ending health disparities.

“People’s choices are either constrained or facilitated by what we now call social determinants of health,” she said.

Social determinants of health include individual resources like income, education level, and socioeconomic status. Housing, public safety, transportation, and exposure to toxic environments are public resources that affect individual health.

These dynamics are the context in which individual behaviors develop said Jones. Just as individual behaviors are influenced by social determinants of health, societal determinants of context influence the determinants of health.

Societal determinants of context, also known as social determinants of equity determine the range of differences that stratify and force people into groups. Segregating practices like racism, sexism, and capitalism create an environment where one group will succeed and another will struggle.

“This system is sapping the strength of our whole society through the waste of human resources,” said Jones. The practice of not fully investing in the education of all children combined with citizens dying years before their time all subtract from the collective effort of humanity, “We are going to have to name racism as a threat to the health and well-being of the nation,” she said.

Cheryl Dozier, associate provost for institutional diversity at the University of Georgia, agrees with Jones’ declaration.

“We are so afraid to confront racism,” said Dozier, “we have re-segregated ourselves in the South and in society.”

Monica Gaughan, an associate professor in the College of Public Health, attended the lecture because she had heard Jones speak before and wanted to gain additional tools to facilitate race conversations in her health and policy management courses.

“Race is one of the basic structural issues that undergird all kinds of problems in our society,” said Gaughan, “but health is the obvious one we work on in public health.”

“If we are interested in eliminating racial disparities in health,” said Jones, “we need to examine the fundamental causes of those racial disparities.” The first step is to talk about the systems that make race an important distinction. Talking about racism in addition to monitoring the differential outcomes and exposures based on race are an important step in the process of resolving disparities. The next step, she said, is being aware of the existence of racism in practices and organizations.

Racism is not some vague thought or practice, it operates through identifiable and addressable mechanisms said Jones. The last step is to organize and act. There are several groups and organizations throughout the nation and the world dedicated to putting an end to racism.

“I think our new President and the election signaled a change in this nation from us being passive consumers to active citizens,” said Jones, “and if we can keep that up, then that will be our salvation.”