Racism as a Public Health Crisis—Perspectives on Healthy Aging

Overview

While law can perpetuate and reinforce structural discrimination, it can also create meaningful change by helping to identify and remove barriers to access, resources, and opportunity, and thereby advance health equity. This report uses a revised Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) framework put forward by Ruqaiijah Yearby to examine the role of law as a tool to address structural discrimination, with a focus on health impacts across the lifespan. This framework illustrates how law and the systems it interacts with can shape health and well-being, and identifies structural discrimination as the root cause of disparities in health outcomes.