Communities in Action

Communities in Action
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 583
Release: 2017-04-27
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309452961

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

The Impacts of Racism and Bias on Black People Pursuing Careers in Science, Engineering, and Medicine

The Impacts of Racism and Bias on Black People Pursuing Careers in Science, Engineering, and Medicine
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 107
Release: 2020-12-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309679540

Despite the changing demographics of the nation and a growing appreciation for diversity and inclusion as drivers of excellence in science, engineering, and medicine, Black Americans are severely underrepresented in these fields. Racism and bias are significant reasons for this disparity, with detrimental implications on individuals, health care organizations, and the nation as a whole. The Roundtable on Black Men and Black Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine was launched at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2019 to identify key levers, drivers, and disruptors in government, industry, health care, and higher education where actions can have the most impact on increasing the participation of Black men and Black women in science, medicine, and engineering. On April 16, 2020, the Roundtable convened a workshop to explore the context for their work; to surface key issues and questions that the Roundtable should address in its initial phase; and to reach key stakeholders and constituents. This proceedings provides a record of the workshop.

Segregation by Design

Segregation by Design
Author: Jessica Trounstine
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2018-11-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108637086

Segregation by Design draws on more than 100 years of quantitative and qualitative data from thousands of American cities to explore how local governments generate race and class segregation. Starting in the early twentieth century, cities have used their power of land use control to determine the location and availability of housing, amenities (such as parks), and negative land uses (such as garbage dumps). The result has been segregation - first within cities and more recently between them. Documenting changing patterns of segregation and their political mechanisms, Trounstine argues that city governments have pursued these policies to enhance the wealth and resources of white property owners at the expense of people of color and the poor. Contrary to leading theories of urban politics, local democracy has not functioned to represent all residents. The result is unequal access to fundamental local services - from schools, to safe neighborhoods, to clean water.

Public Housing and the Legacy of Segregation

Public Housing and the Legacy of Segregation
Author: Margery Austin Turner
Publisher: The Urban Insitute
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780877667551

For the past two decades the United States has been transforming distressed public housing communities, with three ambitious goals: replace distressed developments with healthy mixed-income communities; help residents relocate to affordable housing, often in the private market; and empower former public housing families toward economic self-sufficiency. The transformation has focused on deconcentrating poverty, but not on the underlying role of racial segregation in creating these distressed communities. In Public Housing and the Legacy of Segregation, scholars and public housing officials assess whether--and how--public housing policies can simultaneously address the problems of poverty and race.

The Dream Revisited

The Dream Revisited
Author: Ingrid Ellen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 643
Release: 2019-01-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0231545045

A half century after the Fair Housing Act, despite ongoing transformations of the geography of privilege and poverty, residential segregation by race and income continues to shape urban and suburban neighborhoods in the United States. Why do people live where they do? What explains segregation’s persistence? And why is addressing segregation so complicated? The Dream Revisited brings together a range of expert viewpoints on the causes and consequences of the nation’s separate and unequal living patterns. Leading scholars and practitioners, including civil rights advocates, affordable housing developers, elected officials, and fair housing lawyers, discuss the nature of and policy responses to residential segregation. Essays scrutinize the factors that sustain segregation, including persistent barriers to mobility and complex neighborhood preferences, and its consequences from health to home finance and from policing to politics. They debate how actively and in what ways the government should intervene in housing markets to foster integration. The book features timely analyses of issues such as school integration, mixed income housing, and responses to gentrification from a diversity of viewpoints. A probing examination of a deeply rooted problem, The Dream Revisited offers pressing insights into the changing face of urban inequality.

American Apartheid

American Apartheid
Author: Douglas S. Massey
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 1993
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780674018211

This powerful and disturbing book clearly links persistent poverty among blacks in the United States to the unparalleled degree of deliberate segregation they experience in American cities. American Apartheid shows how the black ghetto was created by whites during the first half of the twentieth century in order to isolate growing urban black populations. It goes on to show that, despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968, segregation is perpetuated today through an interlocking set of individual actions, institutional practices, and governmental policies. In some urban areas the degree of black segregation is so intense and occurs in so many dimensions simultaneously that it amounts to "hypersegregation." The authors demonstrate that this systematic segregation of African Americans leads inexorably to the creation of underclass communities during periods of economic downturn. Under conditions of extreme segregation, any increase in the overall rate of black poverty yields a marked increase in the geographic concentration of indigence and the deterioration of social and economic conditions in black communities. As ghetto residents adapt to this increasingly harsh environment under a climate of racial isolation, they evolve attitudes, behaviors, and practices that further marginalize their neighborhoods and undermine their chances of success in mainstream American society. This book is a sober challenge to those who argue that race is of declining significance in the United States today.

Reproducing Racism

Reproducing Racism
Author: Daria Roithmayr
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2014-01-20
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0814777139

Argues that racial inequality reproduces itself automatically over time because early unfair advantage for whites has paved the way for continuing advantage This book is designed to change the way we think about racial inequality. Long after the passage of civil rights laws, blacks and Latinos possess barely a nickel of wealth for every dollar that whites have. Why have we made so little progress? Legal scholar Daria Roithmayr provocatively argues that racial inequality lives on because white advantage functions as a powerful self-reinforcing monopoly, reproducing itself automatically from generation to generation even in the absence of intentional discrimination. Drawing on work in antitrust law and a range of other disciplines, Roithmayr brilliantly compares the dynamics of white advantage to the unfair tactics of giants like AT&T and Microsoft. With penetrating insight, Roithmayr locates the engine of white monopoly in positive feedback loops that connect the dramatic disparity of Jim Crow to modern racial gaps in jobs, housing and education. Wealthy white neighborhoods fund public schools that then turn out wealthy white neighbors. Whites with lucrative jobs informally refer their friends, who refer their friends, and so on. Roithmayr concludes that racial inequality might now be locked in place, unless policymakers immediately take drastic steps to dismantle this oppressive system.

Healthy People 2010, Midcourse Review

Healthy People 2010, Midcourse Review
Author: Health and Human Services Dept (U S )
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2007-05
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780160776014

NOTE: NO FURTHER DISCOUNT FOR THIS PRINT PRODUCT--OVERSTOCK SALE -- Significantly reduced list price while supplies last Founded on data that enable progress and trends to be tracked, Healthy People 2010 provides a set of 10-year evidence-based objectives for improving the health of all Americans. Its two overarching goals are to increase the quality and years of healthy life and to eliminate health disparities. Healthy People 2010 covers 28 focus areas with 467 specific objectives. Midway through the decade, the midcourse review assesses the status of the national objectives. The midcourse review is the process through which HHS, Federal agencies, and other experts across the Nation assessed the data trends during the first half of the decade, considered new science and available data, and made changes to ensure that Healthy People 2010 remains current, accurate, and relevant, while concurrently assessing emerging public health priorities. The midcourse review uses data made available by January 1, 2005. Public comments on the changes at the midcourse to the Healthy People 2010 objectives and subobjectives were solicited in August and September 2005. The Healthy People 2010 Midcourse Review summarizes the progress and trends for the national disease prevention and health promotion objectives. Related products: Healthy People 2010, Final Review is available here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/017-001-00579-7 New Edition-- Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015-2020, 8e is available here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/001-000-04771-0 "

The Truly Disadvantaged

The Truly Disadvantaged
Author: William Julius Wilson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2012-06-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226924653

An assessment of the relationship between race and poverty in the United States, and potential solutions for the issue. Renowned American sociologist William Julius Wilson takes a look at the social transformation of inner-city ghettos, offering a sharp evaluation of the convergence of race and poverty. Rejecting both conservative and liberal interpretations of life in the inner city, Wilson offers essential information and several solutions to policymakers. The Truly Disadvantaged is a wide-ranging examination, looking at the relationship between race, employment, and education from the 1950s onwards, with surprising and provocative findings. This second edition also includes a new afterword from Wilson himself that brings the book up to date and offers fresh insight into its findings. Praise for The Truly Disadvantaged “The Truly Disadvantaged should spur critical thinking in many quarters about the causes and possible remedies for inner city poverty. As policymakers grapple with the problems of an enlarged underclass they—as well as community leaders and all concerned Americans of all races—would be advised to examine Mr. Wilson’s incisive analysis.” —Robert Greenstein, New York Times Book Review “The Truly Disadvantaged not only assembles a vast array of data gleamed from the works of specialists, it offers much new information and analysis. Wilson has asked the hard questions, he has done his homework, and he has dared to speak unpopular truths.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review “Required reading for anyone, presidential candidate or private citizen, who really wants to address the growing plight of the black urban underclass.” —David J. Garrow, Washington Post Book World