Health Equity for Communities of Color: A Conversation with Dr. Scott Cook, a Physician and International Lecturer on Health Disparities

‘If America catches a cold, black folks get pneumonia’ is a common phrase in the African-American community, and we have seen the suffering during Covid fall disproportionately on communities of color. Thirty years ago, Dr. Scott Cook wrote his thesis on “The Public Health Implications of Institutional Racism and how it Affects the Health of African American Males”. He was given some pushback on the topic at the time. Homicide, gun violence, and alcohol/drug dependence just then being understood as public health crises. Today, climate and environmental dangers, housing issues, nutrition, trauma, and poverty can be added to the growing list of forces that are associated with poor health outcomes. Dr. Cook, a physician, international lecturer on racism and health disparities, as well as an addiction specialist, has spent much of his medical career identifying, studying, and attempting to remedy these social determinants of health. If racism = prejudice + power, we have a long road ahead of us in our work as a society to achieve health equity, diversity, inclusion as well as recruitment and retention in medicine among people of color. Join Paul for his conversation with Dr. Cook as they explore these facets of the American medical system, and how we continue to attempt and fail at making medicine— both an art and science— more equitable and just. What are the best ways to improve experience and outcomes? This frank and personal discussion, with a prominent and vocal agent of change, yields many insights and prescriptions for how we can and must do better.