"...It's hard work and requires leaning into discomfort and ongoing self-reflection..."

Kathleen Szegda is the Sr. Director of Community Research and Evaluation at the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts.

She writes, "Health equity and anti-racism work are core values in our work. The resource guide provides a lot of great information about how to engage in this work. It’s hard work and requires leaning into discomfort and ongoing self-reflection about how we show up, biases we bring to the table, and how we intentionally counter those biases and the dominant narratives that are pervasive in our society that contribute to inequity.

I’ve used a number of the resources in the resource guide, including the “Levels of Racism,” the many Robert Wood Johnson Foundation resources on health equity and how racism impacts health, articles by David Williams on the impacts of racism on health, and the “White Dominant and Something Different” tool.

These resources have shaped my understanding of how our country’s history of enslavement of Black people and subsequent and present-day racist systems and structures continue to drive health inequities today, how systems and structures create and perpetuate health inequities among the many other groups of people of color in our society, and what I can do to address racism. These resources have shaped the reports we have created and how we approach our work.”

Visit the Race and Health Equity Guide to see these resources and more, and learn how other people in the region are working to advance race and health equity.