In 1962, at the midpoint of America’s civil rights movement, federal judges ordered large Alabama cities to desegregate public swimming pools. Rather than capitulate, city officials closed or vandalized them, with some officials filling pools with poured concrete.

All Alabama residents lost the use of the swimming pools, regardless of race or ethnicity.

Likewise, on a macro scale in today’s America, no one is untouched by the spillover of racism, APHA Press book editors and authors said at a Monday Champion Conversation, “The Future of Health Equity with APHA Press Authors.” 

“Racism is a set of systems that is affecting all of us,” said Chandra Ford, co-editor with Derek Griffith of APHA Press’s “Racism: Science and Tools for the Public Health Professional, 2nd edition.” “At times, some groups benefit and some are harmed. All of (us) are connected.”

This year the Trump administration has attacked diversity, equity, inclusion and racial justice. Among those who work on these issues, federal staff have been fired and researchers have lost grants. Policies supporting public health protections have been rolled back at the federal and state levels.

Effectively responding to the moment requires public health advocates to somehow convey that everyone benefits from collective health, shared prosperity and cross-the-board equality, speakers said. 

“When we shut people out, everyone loses,” said Aysha Pamukcu, co-author with Jamila Porter of “Advancing Equity and Justice,” alluding to the swimming pool debacle 63 years ago. “Systems that exclude people will eventually come for us all.”

The six authors and editors were not surprised by the Trump administration’s dismantling of public health pillars, given the field’s progress in recent decades. But they also insisted public health professionals need to break down silos and come together to continue the fight.

“‘Equity’ has become a dirty word, but it should really be a shared commitment,” said Regina Davis Moss, editor of “Black Women’s Reproductive Health and Sexuality: A Holistic Public Health Approach.”

“We cannot give in. We have to keep pushing for the science and the policy,” Davis Moss said.

In the APHA Press book “Policy Engagement,” the authors spend time discussing how indirect public health policies on social, economic and public safety issues need advocacy from public health professionals, too. Book co-author Keshia M. Pollack Porter called this the “upstream approach” — advocating for ostensibly nonpublic health policies because they have a downstream impact on public health. This approach acknowledges social determinants of health from a policy perspective. 

Advocates must also be aware of how policymakers and outside interest groups see issues and be nimble enough to explore openings for persuasion and to adjust to changing circumstances, she said.

Throughout the discussion, the experts kept returning to the ideas of common ground and how all parts impact the whole, all people benefit from public health.

“People have different lived experiences, but they have the same goal of being healthy,” Pollack Porter said. 

For more information on APHA Press books and the Strategic Skills for Public Health Practice series, visit www.aphabookstore.org.

Photo: Jamila Porter, courtesy EZ Event Photography.