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Advocate Aurora states 'It is undeniable: Racism is a public health crisis'

The Journal Times - 9/29/2020

Sep. 29--Joining with 38 other nationwide health systems, Milwaukee-based Advocate Aurora Health Care has made a statement declaring racism to be a public health crisis. Those health systems, which includes La Crosse-based Gundersen Health System, are following the lead of dozens of other corporations and municipalities in making such a declaration.

Statements of this kind often point to systemic denials of access to health care to predominantly Black communities, and how those denials (through methods such as redlining and disinvestment) lead to other problems like increased drug use and crime.

"As the largest health care provider in Wisconsin, we know we must do better," Cristy Garcia-Thomas, Advocate Aurora Health's chief external affairs officer, said. "For us as a health care system, we're doing more than what traditional people think of us as a health care system. When we think about community health work, depending on ZIP code you're born on, the life expectancy gap can be as much as 16 years."

The Kenosha County Board made such a declaration in August, less than three weeks before the Jacob Blake shooting. In May 2019, Milwaukee became the first major U.S. city to declare racism to be a public health crisis. In June, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said that racism "has harmed generations of Black and Brown Wisconsinites."

Many health leaders have pointed out how the COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated these disparities, since deaths and infection rates and complications from the novel coronavirus occur more often in communities where there are more people of color. National Nurses United reported in June: "Across the United States, African Americans and in many areas Latinos, have died of COVID-19 in numbers as high as three to four times the rate of whites, and have lost jobs in greater percentages since March."

Garcia-Thomas said that a "bright light" has been shown on health inequities nationwide and in Wisconsin, primarily "affecting marginalized communities," which are primarily populated by people of color.

The American Public Health Association said that declarations that racism is a public health issues "are an important first step in the movement to advance racial equity and justice and must be followed by allocation of resources and strategic action."

In making its declaration, Advocate Aurora said in a release that it "is proud to publicly reiterate our commitment to dismantling structural racism and reversing its negative effects on the health and wellbeing of our communities."

The statement came with a five-pronged promise to "continue to" doing the following:

-- Hiring/developing clinicians and team members "who reflect and effectively treat the unique needs of each population we serve."

-- Placing people from "diverse backgrounds" to leadership positions.

-- Decreasing turnover rates for employees of color.

-- More investment in "local certified minority- and women-owned businesses."

-- Combating health disparities in communities where Advocate Aurora has a presence.

On top of that, Garcia-Thomas said that Advocate Aurora has started new initiatives directly targeting underserved communities to "meet them where we are." That includes a virtual program that teaches patients with hypertension "culturally relevant" recipes that fit into cuisine that is familiar to them within African American and Hispanic communities.

Network's statement

Advocate Aurora's statement was made in conjunction with 38 other health systems connected through the Healthcare Anchor Network, a national collaboration of health systems that aims to build "more inclusive and sustainable local economies" of which Advocate Aurora was a co-founder.

The Healthcare Anchor Network's statement directly references the killings of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor as evidence of why these health systems "must double down on our efforts" to combat racism because "Systemic racism poses a real threat to the health of our patients, families, and communities."

The collaborative statement opens with: "As members and leaders of many healthcare organizations across the nation addressing the disproportionate Black and Brown mortality of the COVID-19 pandemic, we say without hesitation that Black Lives Matter."

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