Harvard Public Health

Structural racism is often called an invisible evil because it's so pervasive, but also hidden in some ways. It involves interconnected institutions—housing, education, health care—that foster discrimination against racial groups. And this structural racism can play a role in health disparities across the United States. In this week's podcast we speak about structural racism and its health effects with Zinzi Bailey, ScD, '14, director of research and evaluation in the Center for Health Equity at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Bailey was recently co-author on a paper in the Lancet, that explored the history of structural racism and health inequities in the United States, and also ways to combat this discrimination moving forward.