Douglas Brooks served as head of the White House National AIDS policy during the Obama administration as the first openly gay, HIV-positive African American to hold the job. It focused on the health needs of the people at highest risk of addressing HIV infection and is now managing director of community involvement at the biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences. Dr. Otis Brawley was the chief medical and Research Fellow of the American Cancer Society before a professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins always where he was a research effort for the monitor differences in cancer rates and outcomes to explore. About a call, push the two systemic factors discussed behind racial disparities in the field of health and how COVID-19 can serve as a catalyst for addressing them. Dr. Otis Brawley: It is a combination of racism and socioeconomic deprivation that people do that causes as well. It begins at birth and includes what we eat, what our habits are, what our living conditions, and includes disease prevention, which I think is not stressed enough access to and treated by getting diagnosed once. We have to show a lot of data that people who are poor, high-calorie diet will get more, and that causes obesity levels has increased. People who are poor must be able to not have access to doctors for advice on disease prevention. If you look at major chronic diseases, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, are all caused by a combination of smoking, consuming too many calories, not enough exercise and obesity. These are the causes of cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are the major chronic diseases and habits that come along with racism, along with poverty and with the withdrawal. Continue reading: The New American Revolution Douglas Brooks Otis, you mentioned racism. Often, when we hear racism, we think this is an act of an individual or group to another. But I think we think about what you just described in connection with the structural racism, and the way in which systems are designed and how they affect the way people live, work, play and pray. I have read a large piece of a woman of Harvard, who has spoken, yes, comorbidities worsen COVID-19 serious illness and death are real. But what we also see that many of these people, especially blacks people living in crowded homes and buildings. You leave this overcrowded homes and buildings and on crowded public transport, go to the crowded workplaces. We can not those systemic problems that exacerbate COVID-19 bypass and other health inequalities. OB: When I was at the National Cancer Institute in 1990, we started a campaign tries to encourage people to eat per day fifty eight servings of fruits and vegetables. The chains of grocery stores that were in the cities bring a few fresh fruits and vegetables. They thought, but that people in the city do not buy them do not want to even try to encourage people to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. For me it is a form of systemic racism. The people who made this decision not thinking “I’m going to hurt blacks and Latinx people go.” They did not think that way. But the result was people were injured. DB: Leadership is important. But it is the definition of leadership in a way that the sense of community. What I mean by this? In some places you can not allow the community leader is the guy who owns the barber shop, or community leader is the woman for kids who all seek when they go to school. We are flexible enough to understand in our thoughts as we make investments in these communities in ways that are sustainable and that they are realistic. OB: I agree with you. I think the long-term investment should also be in good schools. We need more people trained who can engage in the community. We did not have on health reform. We must turn to health care. We need to change how we do it. We need to change the way we consume. DB: Last April, Tony Fauci said that the data had a little ‘[on COVID-19] in significant differences among members in white and Latinx of our country started coming. And he said, Behold, we go to find a cure. We’re going to finish the crown. But if we did, we have to go back and look at these differences to continue to affect the African-American community. He felt like a call to action, frankly. [I] of the [d] Daniel Dawes, who is the new director of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine. So with Morehouse build a real-time platform, detects not only the 19-COVID differences, but the differences for mental health, behavioral health, diabetes and asthma. We want to superimpose them on COVID-19 data, and then use the data with partners such as academic institutions, policy makers and people like us in the private sector to see how we can make a difference and the laws and politics the change in our country to address structural racism. I am a professional social worker, and a very painful aspect is the subtle racism that childhood should be spent to dream of what can be zero barriers in the head. If a child is in a home, in a family where people do every day to fight and combat barriers is an opportunity that dream just not available. You can not change it without being able to tell the story and show the data made get to make a difference. OB: When I was health czar, what I try to do is make sure that every person in the US has a health coach. This is a person who might have met three or four times a year, from birth all the way through the rest of life, and being a consultant, how to stay healthy and discuss, ask what things you need be, and what habits you begin, you are not good for your health to get. We could prevent a lot of diseases. I’m always a bit ‘optimistic. That’s why I come every day from the bed and continues to do so. I think that eventually we are going to recognize people, will have a problem. It can not be set in the next generation. But I think we are getting better and better. I actually for blacks to see the mortality rates of cancer in my area. For the prostate, breast, lung, colon – all major types of cancer, death rates are actually down. So I can say that I have given, we do well to demonstrate, and the differences are diminishing. But the differences are here for a long, long time. DB: If I did not think we could make a difference-really do, I probably can not get out of bed the difference. What I think is different about now is the intersection of COVID-19, everyone has at home, and television. The horrific murders that each witness-see good people in our country, the movements and demonstrations across the country. And that energy, I think it all together to find these differences to be seen. I feel more confident about our country is very important, but hopeful about health care and economics, racism and injustice, inequality, me. In a very, very long a time because I think that good people simply do not know. I’m not angry, hateful people. They are just people who go about their lives and did not know. Now they do. Moderated By Alice Park Picture copyright by Getty Images (2)
Dr. Otis Brawley Speaking in Douglas Brooks, ‘We can not reform the health care system, we need to mash Trans Health’
