III 

117TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION S. RES. 875 

Declaring racism a public health crisis. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

DECEMBER 20, 2022 

Mr. BROWN (for himself, Mr. BOOKER, Mr. PADILLA, Ms. WARREN, Ms. STABENOW, Mr. WARNOCK, Mr. MENENDEZ, Mr. CARDIN, Mr. MERKLEY, 

Mr. BLUMENTHAL, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, Ms. BALDWIN, Mr. CARPER, Ms. 

KLOBUCHAR, Mr. LEAHY, Mr. SANDERS, Ms. SMITH, Mr. VAN HOLLEN, 

Mr. WYDEN, Mr. MARKEY, Ms. HIRONO, Ms. DUCKWORTH, Mr. REED, 

and Mr. WHITEHOUSE) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 

RESOLUTION 

Declaring racism a public health crisis. 

Whereas a public health issue is an issue— 

(1) that affects many people, is a threat to the public, and is ongoing; 

(2) that is unfairly distributed among different populations, disproportionately impacting health outcomes, 

access to health care, and life expectancy; 

(3) the effects of which could be reduced by preventive measures; and 

(4) for which those preventive measures are not yet 

in place; 


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Whereas public health experts agree that significant racial inequities exist in the prevalence, severity, and mortality 

rates of various health conditions in the United States; 

Whereas examples of such inequities include— 

(1) life expectancy rates for Black and Native American people in the United States being significantly lower 

than those of White people in the United States; 

(2) Black and Native American women being 2 to 4 

times more likely than White women to suffer severe maternal morbidity or die of pregnancy-related complications; 

(3) Black and Native American infants being 2 to 

3 times as likely to die as White infants, and the Black 

infant mortality rate in the United States being higher 

than the infant mortality rates recorded in 27 of the 36 

democratic countries with market-based economies that 

are members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development; and 

(4) during the COVID–19 pandemic, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific 

Islander, and Native American communities experiencing 

disproportionately high rates of COVID–19 infection, 

hospitalization, and mortality compared to the White 

population of the United States; 

Whereas inequities in health outcomes are exacerbated for 

people of color who are LGBTQIA+ and have disabilities; 

Whereas, historically, explanations for health inequities focused on false genetic science (for example, eugenics) and 

incomplete social scientific analyses that narrowly focus 

on individual behavior to highlight ostensible deficiencies 

within racial and ethnic minority groups; 


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Whereas modern public health discourse recognizes the 

broader social context in which health inequities emerge 

and acknowledges the impact of historical and contemporary racism on health; 

Whereas, since its founding, the United States has had a 

longstanding history and legacy of racism, mistreatment, 

and discrimination that has perpetuated health inequities 

for members of racial and ethnic minority groups; 

Whereas that history and legacy of racism, mistreatment, and 

discrimination includes— 

(1) the immoral paradox of freedom and slavery, 

which is an atrocity that can be traced throughout the 

history of the United States, as African Americans lived 

under the oppressive institution of slavery from 1619 

through 1865, endured the practices and laws of segregation during the Jim Crow era, and continue to face the 

ramifications of systemic racism through unjust and discriminatory structures and policies; 

(2) the failure of the United States to carry out the 

responsibilities and promises made in more than 350 

treaties ratified with sovereign indigenous communities, 

including American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native 

Hawaiians, as made evident by the chronic and pervasive 

underfunding of the Indian Health Service and Tribal, 

Urban Indian, and Native Hawaiian health care, the vast 

health and socioeconomic inequities faced by Native 

American people, and the inaccessibility of many Federal 

public health and social programs in Native American 

communities; 

(3) the enactment of immigration laws in the United 

States, such as— 


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(A) the Page Act of 1875, which effectively prohibited the entry of East Asian women into the 

United States; 

(B) the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which 

ostracized thousands of Chinese-born laborers, who 

were essential in the completion of the transcontinental railroad and development of the West 

Coast; and 

(C) the Immigration Act of 1917, which barred 

all immigrants from the ‘‘Asiatic zone’’ and prevented the migration of individuals from South Asia, 

Southeast Asia, and East Asia, scapegoating Asians, 

separating families, and branding Asians as perpetual outsiders in the United States; 

(4) during the Great Depression Era, the deportation by the United States of approximately 1,800,000 individuals based on their Mexican ethnic identity, when 

approximately 60-percent of the individuals deported to 

Mexico were United States citizens, and the targeting of 

individuals of Mexican descent for ‘‘repatriation’’ due to 

scapegoating efforts, which blamed them for ‘‘stealing’’ 

jobs from ‘‘real’’ Americans; and 

(5) in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson establishing the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, which concluded that White racism is responsible 

for the pervasive discrimination and segregation in employment, education, and housing, resulting in deepened 

racial division and continued exclusion of Black communities from the benefits of economic progress; 

Whereas overt racism was embedded in the development of 

medical science and medical training during the 18th, 

19th, and 20th centuries, causing disproportionate physVerDate Sep 11 2014 04:57 Dec 21, 2022 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR875.IS SR875

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ical and psychological harm to members of racial and 

ethnic minority groups, including— 

(1) the unethical practices and abuses experienced 

by Black patients and research participants, such as the 

Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which serve as foundations for 

the mistrust the Black community has for the medical 

system; and 

(2) the egregiously unethical and cruel treatment 

enslaved Black women were forced to endure as subjects 

of insidious medical experiments to advance modern gynecology, including those perpetuated by the so-called ‘‘father of gynecology’’, J. Marion Sims; 

Whereas structural racism cemented historical racial and ethnic inequities in access to resources and opportunities, 

contributing to worse health outcomes; 

Whereas examples of that structural racism include— 

(1) that, before the enactment of the Medicare program, the United States health care system was highly 

segregated, and, as late as the mid-1960s, hospitals, clinics, and doctors’ offices throughout northern and southern States complied with Jim Crow laws and were completely segregated by race, leaving Black communities 

with little to no access to health care services; 

(2) the landmark case Simkins v. Moses H. Cone 

Memorial Hospital (323 F.2d 959 (4th Cir. 1963)), 

which challenged the use of public funds by the Federal 

Government to expand, support, and sustain segregated 

hospital care, and provided justification for title VI of the 

Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq.) and 

the Medicare hospital certification program, establishing 

Medicare hospital racial integration guidelines that apVerDate Sep 11 2014 04:16 Dec 21, 2022 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR875.IS SR875

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plied to every hospital that participated in the Federal 

program; 

(3) Pacific Islanders from the Freely Associated 

States experiencing unique health inequities resulting 

from United States nuclear weapons tests on their home 

islands, while they have been categorically denied access 

to Medicaid and other Federal health benefits; and 

(4) language minorities, including Chinese-, Korean- 

, Vietnamese-, Russian-, and Spanish-speaking Americans, not being assured nondiscriminatory access to federally funded services, including health services, until the 

signing of Executive Order 13166 (42 U.S.C. 2000d–1 

note; related to improving access to services for persons 

with limited English proficiency) in 2000; 

Whereas, although overt racism has been outlawed in the 

United States, subtle or implicit racism in all sectors of 

the medical service profession continues to cause disproportionate physical and psychological harm to members of racial and ethnic minority groups; 

Whereas examples of subtle or implicit racism in the medical 

service profession include— 

(1) the history and persistence of racist and nonscientific medical beliefs, which are associated with ongoing 

racial inequities in treatment and health outcomes; 

(2) implicit racial and ethnic biases within the 

health care system, which have an explicit impact on the 

quality of care experienced by members of racial and ethnic minority groups, such as the undertreatment of pain 

in Black patients; 

(3) nearly 1 in 5 Hispanic/Latino Americans avoiding medical care due to concern about being discriminated against or treated poorly; 


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(4) the United States health care system and other 

economic and social structures remaining fraught with biases based on race, ethnicity, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), and class that lead to 

health inequities; 

(5) women of color, including Black, Native American, Hispanic/Latina, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, 

and Pacific Islander women, continuing to face attacks 

on their prenatal, maternal, and reproductive health and 

rights throughout history; and 

(6) physicians routinely, through the late 1960s and 

early 1980s, sterilizing members of racial and ethnic minority groups, specifically African American and Latina 

women, performing excessive and medically unnecessary 

procedures without their informed consent; 

Whereas structural racism perpetuates racial and ethnic inequities in the social determinants of health, which produces unintended negative health outcomes for members 

of racial and ethnic minority groups; 

Whereas examples of that structural racism include— 

(1) that there are fewer pharmacies, medical practices, and hospitals in predominantly Black and Hispanic/ 

Latino neighborhoods, compared to White or more diverse neighborhoods; 

(2) environmental hazards, such as toxic waste facilities, garbage dumps, and other sources of airborne 

pollutants, being disproportionately located in predominantly Black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian American, Native 

Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and low-income communities, 

resulting in poor air quality conditions, which can increase the likelihood of chronic respiratory illness and 

premature death from particle pollution; 


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(3) that employed Black adults are 10-percent less 

likely to have workplace insurance than are employed 

White adults because of racial segregation in occupation 

sectors and types of organizations they work in, and that 

certain groups of nonelderly Asian American adults, including Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Korean, Vietnamese, and Cambodian adults, also have lower levels of 

insurance than White adults; 

(4) that several States with higher percentages of 

Black, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American populations 

have not expanded their Medicaid programs, continuing 

to disenfranchise minority communities from access to 

health care to this day; 

(5) discriminatory housing practices, such as redlining, which have, for decades, systemically excluded 

members of racial and ethnic minority groups from housing, robbing them of capital in the form of low-cost, stable mortgages and opportunities to build wealth, and the 

Federal Government using its financial power to segregate renters in newly built public housing; 

(6) social inequities such as differing access to quality health care, healthy food and safe drinking water, 

safe neighborhoods, education, job security, and reliable 

transportation, which affect health risks and outcomes; 

(7) that, as much as 60-percent of the health of a 

person in the United States can be determined by their 

ZIP Code; 

(8) that the COVID–19 pandemic has exacerbated 

economic, health, housing, and food security barriers for 

Black, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American households, 

which already suffer from disproportionately higher rates 

of food insecurity; and 


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(9) members of the Black, Native American, Alaska 

Native, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Hispanic/Latino communities being disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice and immigration enforcement systems and facing a higher risk 

of contracting COVID–19 within prison populations and 

detention centers due to the over-incarceration of members of those communities; 

Whereas structural racism perpetuates ongoing knowledge 

gaps in data, research, and development, which produces 

unintended negative health outcomes for members of racial and ethnic minority groups; 

Whereas examples of that structural racism include that— 

(1) most participants in clinical trials are White, so 

there is insufficient data to develop evidence-based recommendations for people from racial and ethnic minority 

groups; 

(2) medical research equipment and medical devices 

are typically developed by majority-White teams and thus 

can have racial blind spots unintentionally built into their 

design, rendering them less effective for people from racial and ethnic minority groups, such as— 

(A) electroencephalogram (EEG) electrodes 

used in neuroimaging research do not collect reliable 

data when used on scalps with thick, curly hair; and 

(B) pulse oximeters produce less accurate oxygen saturation readings when used on fingertips 

with darker skin; 

(3) a lack of images depicting darker skin in medical 

textbooks, literature, and journals contributes to higher 

rates of underdiagnosis or misdiagnosis in patients with 

darker skin; and 


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(4) many health-related studies fail to include 

disaggregated data on, or do not disaggregate data 

among, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific 

Islanders, leading to their invisibility in health data and 

unjust resource allocation and policies; 

Whereas racism produces unjust outcomes and treatment for 

members of racial and ethnic minority groups, with such 

negative experiences serving as stressors that over time 

have a negative impact on physical health (leading, for 

example, to high blood pressure or hypertension) and 

mental health (leading, for example, to anxiety or depression); 

Whereas there is evidence that racial and ethnic minority 

groups continue to face discrimination in the United 

States, examples of which include that— 

(1) compared to White Americans, Black Americans 

are 5 times more likely to report experiencing discrimination when interacting with the police, Hispanic/Latino 

Americans and Native Americans are nearly 3 times as 

likely, and Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders are nearly twice as likely; 

(2) 42-percent of United States employees have experienced or witnessed racism in the workplace; 

(3) social scientists have documented racial microaggressions in contemporary United States society, including— 

(A) assumptions that members of racial and 

ethnic minority groups are not true Americans; 

(B) assumptions of lesser intelligence; 

(C) statements that convey color-blindness or 

denial of the importance of race; 


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(D) assumptions of criminality or dangerousness; 

(E) denial of individual racism; 

(F) promotion of the myth of meritocracy; 

(G) assumptions that one’s cultural background 

and communication styles are pathological; 

(H) treatment as a second-class citizen; and 

(I) environmental messages of being unwelcome 

or devalued; 

(4) Muslims, South Asians, and Sikhs were unjustly 

targeted for profiling, surveillance, arrest, discrimination, 

harassment, assault, and murder after 9/11; 

(5) xenophobic rhetoric, including anti-immigrant 

rhetoric and scapegoating people of East Asian and 

Southeast Asian descent for the COVID–19 pandemic, 

has resulted in a surge of hate incidents against Asian 

Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, including increased harassment, discrimination, bullying, 

vandalism, and assault; and 

(6) more than 50-percent of Hispanic/Latino adults 

experience at least one form of discrimination due to 

their racial or ethnic heritage, such as being treated as 

if they were not smart, criticized for speaking Spanish, 

told to return to their country, called offensive names, or 

unfairly stopped by the police; 

Whereas Black people in the United States experience overt 

and direct forms of violence that, when not fatal, can 

cause severe physical or psychological harm; 

Whereas examples of such forms of violence include— 

(1) Black people being confronted and threatened by 

armed citizens while performing everyday tasks, such as 


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jogging in neighborhoods, driving while Black, or playing 

in a park; 

(2) Black people being 3 times more likely to be 

killed by police than White people, and police violence 

being the sixth leading cause of death for young Black 

men; 

(3) Black communities leading the United States in 

mourning the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Elijah McClain, and countless other 

Black Americans, and in calling for justice and long-term 

changes to dismantle systems of oppression; 

(4) that it took the United States 66 years after the 

senseless and brutal murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till 

to make lynching a Federal crime; 

(5) since 2015, mass shootings around the country, 

such as in Buffalo, New York, and Charleston, South 

Carolina, serving as reminders of the unresolved history 

of racism in the United States and highlighting the 

threats Black people must take into consideration when 

going about their daily lives, both when outside their 

communities and within those communities; and 

(6) the real threat of brutality and violence adversely 

impacting mental health among Black communities; 

Whereas Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Hispanic/ 

Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific 

Islanders experience racially motivated kidnapping, murders, and mass violence, such as shootings in Oak Creek, 

Wisconsin, El Paso, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia, and Indianapolis, Indiana, that, even when not fatal, can cause severe physical or psychological harm; 

Whereas, throughout the history of the United States, members of racial and ethnic minority groups have been at 


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the forefront of civil rights movements for essential freedoms, human rights, and equal protection for 

marginalized groups and continue to fight for racial and 

economic justice today; 

Whereas racial inequities in health continue to persist because of historical and contemporary racism; 

Whereas public health experts agree that racism meets the 

criteria of a public health crisis, because— 

(1) the condition affects many people, is seen as a 

threat to the public, and is continuing to increase; 

(2) the condition is distributed unfairly; 

(3) preventive measures could reduce the effects of 

the condition; and 

(4) those preventive measures are not yet in place; 

Whereas the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention— 

(1) declared racism a serious threat to public health; 

and 

(2) acknowledged the need for additional research 

and investments to address that serious threat; 

Whereas a Federal public health crisis declaration defines 

racism as a pervasive health issue and alerts the people 

of the United States to the need to enact immediate and 

effective cross-governmental efforts to address the root 

causes of structural racism and the downstream impacts 

of that racism; and 

Whereas such a declaration requires the response of governments to engage significant resources to empower the 

communities that are impacted: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That the Senate— 


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1 (1) supports the resolutions drafted, introduced, 

2 and adopted by cities and localities across the 

3 United States declaring racism a public health crisis; 

4 (2) declares racism a public health crisis in the 

5 United States; 

6 (3) commits to— 

7 (A) establishing a nationwide strategy to 

8 address health disparities and inequities across 

9 all sectors in society; 

10 (B) dismantling systemic practices and 

11 policies that perpetuate racism; 

12 (C) advancing reforms to address years of 

13 neglectful and apathetic policies that have led 

14 to poor health outcomes for members of racial 

15 and ethnic minority groups; and 

16 (D) promoting efforts to address the social 

17 determinants of health for all racial and ethnic 

18 minority groups in the United States, and espe19 cially for Black and Native American commu20 nities; and 

21 (4) places a charge on the people of the United 

22 States to move forward with urgency to ensure that 

23 the United States stands firmly in honoring its 

24 moral purpose of advancing the self-evident truths 

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1 dowed with certain unalienable rights, and that 

2 among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap3 piness. 

Æ 


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