Race has long been at the core of oral health research. In 1851, The Lancet published a seminal article arguing that “civilized men” and “barbarous races” could be distinguished from each other only by examining the shape of their teeth and dental arches. Since then, race has served two main purposes in oral health research and practice: To recommend specific dental procedures based on racial ...

The COVID-19 pandemic presents American Indian and Alaska Native communities with the biggest public health crisis since the 1918 influenza pandemic. Tribal communities have experienced many major pandemics since European contact, some unintentionally spread, and some, like smallpox, intentionally used to wipe out our people. Because of this shared history, tribal communities in the United States have taken a hard line to protect tribal members and reservation residents from COVID-19. At

In California, we’ve counted ourselves among the lucky this past week if the worst we’ve had to cope with is a thick layer of smoke transforming our daytime skies into eerie orange hellscapes. Compared with the trauma of losing a home or loved one, having to

It’s a calm sunny day as I sit with John McCulloch in front of his store in Teec Nos Pos, Arizona. The store has served his community since 1905. The English name Teec Nos Pos is derived from the Navajo T'iisnasbas, a name inspired by a grove of trees growing in a circle in the area. As we sit and talk, community members file in and out of the store. They’re greeted with large florescent posters asking customers to wear a mask while in the store, to stay home if they feel sick, and to respect the maximum occupancy level of eight people in the store at one time. ...

Climate change is a threat multiplier. This is a fact I know to be true. I also know that our most vulnerable populations, particularly environmental justice communities—people of color and/or low socioeconomic status—are suffering and will continue to suffer first and worst from the adverse effects of climate change. Case in point? Extreme heat. After reading the Killer Heat Report, most people probably used ...

Due to early misconceptions that COVID-19 didn’t lead to severe disease or death in children, US state surveillance dashboards were not set up to track the course of the pandemic among age-specific groups. Over time, state reporting for children has gradually improved, and The COVKID Project has been synthesizing and sharing data for children and teens since late April 2020. Although 49 of 50 states now report COVID-19 case counts by age (with New York being the exception), only 2 ...

There are numerous barriers immigrants face when trying to access medical care in the United States. Unfortunately, the threat and presence of immigration and law enforcement at healthcare facilities is one of them. Immigrants, communities of color, and border residents often fear being questioned, ...

Part 1 of this blog post discussed some of the empty promises in the United States to make #BlackLivesMatter, as well as the types of policy changes needed to move beyond surface-level action. Today, we’ll focus on what specifically cities, companies, and other institutions can do. What can our cities do to dismantle structural racism? There has been a fair amount of coverage ...

As we seek justice for the deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and the long list of Black victims of police violence; as we grapple with the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 in Hispanic, Black, and Indigenous communities; and as we acknowledge the tremendous toll of