Health and Civil Rights

Abstract

It is hard to talk about race. Discussions about race in general and racial discrimination in particular are potentially unnerving, which explains in large measure why such conversations are so few and far between. All too frequently, these discussions take place only after a horrific incident that draws public attention to race, such as the brutal dragging death of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas, or the Good Ol Boy Roundup in Tennessee, or the white supremacist in Los Angeles who went on a racially motivated crime wave and murdered an Asian-American postal worker and shot at young children in a Jewish day care center. In the health context, discussions about race are particularly rare. But that is beginning to change. Over the past year, widespread attention has been focused on eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health. President Clinton and Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala have committed the nation to the ambitious yet reachable goal of eliminating racial and ethnic disparities by 2010 in six areas of health status while continuing the progress we have made in improving the overall health of the American people.1 The six areas of focus are infant mortality, cancer screening and management, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, human immunodeficiency virus infection/acquired immune deficiency syndrome, and immunization.