US city declares racism public health crisis

LOS ANGELES — Salt Lake City in the US Midwestern state of Utah has declared racism a public health crisis.

“This is an important declaration for us to make as a city,” Mayor Erin Mendenhall said in statement on the city’s website on Wednesday.

“Not only are we publicly acknowledging the existence of a grave inequity that many in our community have known and experienced for so long, we are also committing ourselves to the creation of policies and ordinances that are anti-racist,” Mendenhall said of the action that was adopted by the city council on Tuesday night.

Salt Lake City is both the capital and biggest city in Utah.

“There is no doubt of the crisis. Our society is burdened with bigotry and all the hatred that comes with it,” said Council Chair Amy Fowler in the statement.

“Indeed, it is a moral imperative to combat racism, discrimination, and inequities in all their forms.”

The resolution said: “Racism is a serious public health threat because racism — both interpersonal and structural — is proven to have harmful impacts to the mental and physical health of communities of color.”

It said racism is a public health crisis that directly affects residents in the city “resulting in health disparities that are both measurable and preventable”.

The resolution points out that racism influences where a person lives, learns, works, worships and plays, creating inequities in access to a range of social and economic benefits, such as housing, education, wealth and employment. It notes that these factors can be considered social determinants of health.

Civil rights movement

“This nation and the states and municipalities within have been designed to systematically disadvantage underrepresented racial and ethnic groups thereby creating health disparities that have persisted even after the civil rights movement following the abolition of slavery,” the resolution said.

The resolution added that the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how structural inequities have created “heavier burdens of disease, death and social consequences in communities of color” in Utah.

Citing data from the Utah Department of Health, the resolution said the odds of someone getting infected with COVID-19 were three times higher in areas with high proportions of Latino and nonwhite residents.

“The Latino communities account for 14.2 percent of Utah’s population, but 40 percent of the state’s COVID-19 cases,” it noted.

“American Indian and Alaska Native communities in Utah had a case fatality rate that is roughly three times higher than the state average. Black persons in Utah are significantly less likely to be screened for colorectal cancer, but more likely to both contract and die from colorectal cancer.”

The resolution said Salt Lake City believes “we have a moral imperative to combat racism, discrimination, and inequities in all its manifestations”.