Alright, I woke up this morning hype. And now I'm thinking a lot about public health + the pandemic. Long story short, in addition to Trump and his ppl's, public health is certainly to blame for current outcomes as well.

if you want the longer story, issa thread:

the field of public health was poorly prepared to respond to this pandemic not only bc of the fractured system and inadequate funding, but also bc traditional public health folks have refused to incorporate racism into their understanding of health outcomes

how long have "radical" public health folks been pushing to more closely examine the role of racism, sexism, + other structural -ism's in the creation (and re-creation) of health inequality? pushing us outside of traditional silos. how long??

& now look at us. just plain raggedy

Dr. Camara Jones' 2015 APHA presidency where she focused on Racism and Health should not have been so remarkable. This is not a new conversation.

We are here bc of our -- talking to us public health folks now -- unwillingness to address the inequality that we all knew existed.

this is a random unprompted rant this morning lol. I'm just frustrated by the blame game that's been popping off through all of this. Trump is raggedy and is a bad leader. Cool. We knew that before he was in power.

But what about us, public health?

What about OUR leadership? What about OUR commitment to the health of the public?

I guess what I'm wondering is this:
Did we do all that we could to dismantle health inequality prior to covid?

did we partner w/ housing, education, transportation folks to help address inequity in those areas (which have direct ties to health)? did we connect w/ organizers to better understand community issues or did we drop in with solutions of our own?

did we demand divestment in harmful systems, like policing, and investment in beneficial systems, like education? did we use our institutional power to follow up on those demands? did we stand in solidarity with the public whose health we seek to protect?

If we didn't, I think we have to be willing to accept the blame for these outcomes as well.