IV 
119TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 119 
Declaring racism a public health crisis. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 6, 2025 
Mrs. HAYES (for herself, Mrs. RAMIREZ, Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN, Ms. NOR-
TON, Ms. BROWN, Mrs. CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK, Mr. CARSON, Mr. 
JACKSON of Illinois, Ms. TLAIB, Mrs. MCIVER, and Mr. JOHNSON of 
Georgia) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committee 
on the Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the 
Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within 
the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
RESOLUTION 
Declaring racism a public health crisis. 
Whereas a public health crisis is an issue— 
(1) that affects many people, is a threat to the pub-
lic, and is ongoing; 
(2) that is unfairly distributed among different pop-
ulations, disproportionately impacting health outcomes, 
access to health care, and life expectancy; 
(3) the effects of which could be reduced by preven-
tive 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 in-
equities exist in the prevalence, severity, and mortality 
rates of various health conditions in the United States; 
Whereas examples of significant racial inequities include 
that— 
(1) life expectancies for Black, American Indian, 
and Alaska Native people in the United States are 4 to 
10 years lower than those of non-Hispanic White people 
in the United States; 
(2) Black, American Indian, and Alaska Native 
women are 2 to 4 times more likely than White women 
to suffer severe maternal morbidity and have the highest 
rates of pregnancy-related mortality; 
(3) Black, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Amer-
ican Indian, and Alaska Native infants are 21⁄2 to 3 
times more likely to die than White infants; 
(4) the Black infant mortality rate in the United 
States is higher than the infant mortality rates recorded 
in 27 of the 36 democratic countries with market-based 
economies that are members of the Organisation for Eco-
nomic Co-operation and Development; 
(5) Hispanic women have a 51 percent higher inci-
dence, and are 30 percent more likely to die from, cer-
vical cancer compared to non-Hispanic White women; 
(6) Asian Americans are the only racial group in the 
United States who experience cancer as the leading cause 
of death and have the highest rates of lung cancer among 
never-smoking women; 
(7) Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are 2.5- 
times more likely to die from diabetes than non-Hispanic 
White women; 
(8) Native Hawaiians suffer from coronary heart 
disease, stroke, heart failure, cancer, and diabetes at a 3 
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times greater rate than other ethnic populations in Ha-
waii, and become afflicted with those diseases a decade 
earlier in their lives compared with other ethnic popu-
lations; and 
(9) during the COVID–19 pandemic, Black, Latino, 
Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and 
Native American communities experienced disproportion-
ately 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+; 
Whereas inequities in health outcomes are exacerbated for 
people of color who have disabilities; 
Whereas, historically, explanations for health inequities have 
focused on false genetic science, such as eugenics; 
Whereas, historically, explanations for health inequities have 
focused on incomplete social scientific analyses that nar-
rowly focus on individual behavior to highlight ostensible 
deficiencies within racial and ethnic minority groups; 
Whereas modern public health officials recognize the broader 
social context in which health inequities emerge and ac-
knowledge the impact of historical and contemporary rac-
ism on health; 
Whereas racism is recognized in modern public health dis-
course as 1 of many social determinants of health, 
which— 
(1) are a broad range of nonmedical factors that can 
enhance or hinder quality of life and influence health out-
comes; 
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(2) are the conditions in which people are born, 
grow, work, live, and age, and include the wider set of 
forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life; 
(3) include factors such as housing, employment, 
education, health care, food, transportation, social sup-
port, poverty, crime, violence, segregation, and environ-
mental toxins; 
(4) are linked to a lack of opportunity and resources 
to protect, improve, and maintain health; and 
(5) taken together, create health inequities that stem 
from unfair and unjust systems, policies, and practices, 
and limit access to the opportunities and resources need-
ed to live the healthiest life possible; 
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 segrega-
tion during the Jim Crow era, and continue to face the 
ramifications of systemic racism through unjust and dis-
criminatory structures and policies; 
(2) the failure of the United States to carry out the 
responsibilities and promises made in more than 370 
treaties ratified with sovereign indigenous communities, 
including American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Ha-
waiians, and Pacific Islanders, as made evident by the 
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chronic and pervasive underfunding of the Indian Health 
Service and Native Hawaiian health care, the vast health 
and socioeconomic inequities faced by American Indian 
and Alaska Native 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 that scapegoated Asians, separated families, and 
branded Asians as perpetual outsiders, such as— 
(A) the Act entitled ‘‘An Act supplementary to 
the Acts in relation to immigration’’, approved 
March 3, 1875 (commonly known as the ‘‘Page Act 
of 1875’’) (18 Stat. 477, chapter 141), which effec-
tively prohibited the entry of East Asian women into 
the United States; 
(B) the Act entitled ‘‘An Act to execute certain 
treaty stipulations relating to Chinese’’, approved 
May 6, 1882 (commonly known as the ‘‘Chinese Ex-
clusion Act’’) (22 Stat. 58, chapter 126), which 
banned thousands of Chinese-born laborers, who 
were essential in the completion of the trans-
continental railroad and development of the West 
Coast of the United States; and 
(C) the Act entitled ‘‘An Act to regulate the im-
migration of aliens to, and the residence of aliens in, 
the United States’’, approved February 5, 1917 
(commonly known as the ‘‘Immigration Act of 
1917’’) (39 Stat. 874, chapter 29), which barred all 
immigrants from the ‘‘Asiatic zone’’ and prevented 
the migration of individuals from South Asia, South-
east Asia, and East Asia; 
(4) during the Great Depression Era, the deporta-
tion of approximately 1,800,000 individuals based on 
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their Mexican ethnic identity, although approximately 60 
percent of the deported individuals were citizens of the 
United States, and the targeting of individuals of Mexi-
can descent for ‘‘repatriation’’ due to scapegoating ef-
forts, which blamed those individuals for ‘‘stealing’’ jobs 
from ‘‘real’’ Americans; and 
(5) in 1942, the issuance of Executive Order 9066 
which began the forced evacuation and detention of Japa-
nese American West Coast residents, placing 70,000 citi-
zens of the United States into ‘‘relocation centers’’; 
Whereas, in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson established 
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, causing deepened racial division 
and the 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 phys-
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 Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, 
which serve as the foundation for the mistrust the Black 
community has for the medical system; and 
(2) the egregiously unethical and cruel treatment of 
enslaved Black women who were forced to be the subject 
of insidious medical experiments to advance modern gyn-
ecology, including those perpetuated by the so-called ‘‘fa-
ther of gynecology’’, J. Marion Sims; 
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Whereas structural racism cemented historical racial and eth-
nic inequities in access to resources and opportunities, 
contributing to worse health outcomes; 
Whereas examples of structural racism include— 
(1) before the enactment of the Medicare program, 
the United States health care system was highly seg-
regated, and, as late as the mid-1960s, hospitals, clinics, 
and doctors’ offices throughout the northern and south-
ern United 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 Govern-
ment 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 by establishing 
Medicare hospital racial integration guidelines that ap-
plied to every hospital that participated in the Federal 
program; 
(3) that Pacific Islanders from the Freely Associated 
States experience unique health inequities resulting from 
United States nuclear weapons tests on their home is-
lands while they have been categorically denied access to 
Medicaid and other Federal health benefits; 
(4) that language minorities, including Spanish- 
speaking, Chinese-speaking, and Tagalog-speaking people 
in the United States, were not assured nondiscriminatory 
access to federally funded services, including health serv-
ices, until the signing of Executive Order 13166 (42 
U.S.C. 2000d–1 note; relating to improving access to 
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services for persons with limited English proficiency) in 
2000; 
(5) that the COVID–19 pandemic exacerbated eco-
nomic, health, housing, and food security barriers for 
Black, Latino, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific 
Islander, and Native American households, which already 
suffer from disproportionately higher rates of food inse-
curity; and 
(6) that members of the Black, Native American, 
Alaska Native, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific 
Islander, and Latino communities are disproportionately 
impacted by the criminal justice and immigration en-
forcement systems and face a higher risk of contracting 
COVID–19 within prison populations and detention cen-
ters due to the over-incarceration of members of those 
communities; 
Whereas 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 that— 
(1) the history and persistence of racist and nonsci-
entific 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 eth-
nic minority groups, such as the undertreatment of pain 
in Black patients; 
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(3) nearly 1⁄5 of Latino Americans avoid medical 
care due to concern about being discriminated against or 
treated poorly; 
(4) the United States health care system and other 
economic and social structures remain fraught with bi-
ases based on race, ethnicity, sex (including sexual ori-
entation and gender identity), and class that lead to 
health inequities; 
(5) women of color, including Black, Native Amer-
ican, Latina, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pa-
cific Islander women, have faced and continue to face at-
tacks on their prenatal, maternal, and reproductive 
health and rights; and 
(6) through the early 1980s, physicians routinely 
sterilized members of racial and ethnic minority groups, 
specifically American Indian and Alaska Native women 
(with 1⁄4 of childbearing-aged American Indian and Alas-
ka Native women being sterilized by the Indian Health 
Service) and African-American and Latina women, per-
forming excessive and medically unnecessary procedures 
without their informed consent; 
Whereas structural racism perpetuates racial and ethnic in-
equities in the social determinants of health, which pro-
duces 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 prac-
tices, and hospitals in predominantly Black and Latino 
neighborhoods, compared to White or more diverse neigh-
borhoods; 
(2) that environmental hazards, such as toxic waste 
facilities, garbage dumps, and other sources of airborne 
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pollutants, are disproportionately located in predomi-
nantly Black, 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; 
(3) that employed Black adults are 10 percent less 
likely to have employer-sponsored health insurance than 
employed White adults because of racial segregation in 
occupation sectors and the types of organizations in 
which they work; 
(4) that 1 in 4 American Indian and Alaska Native 
people lack health insurance and that Native Hawaiians, 
Pacific Islanders, and certain groups of nonelderly Asian 
American adults have lower levels of insurance than 
White adults; 
(5) that several States with higher percentages of 
Black, Latino, American Indian, and Alaska Native pop-
ulations have not expanded their Medicaid programs, con-
tinuing to disenfranchise minority communities from ac-
cess to health care as of the date of adoption of this reso-
lution; 
(6) discriminatory housing practices, such as red-
lining, which have, for decades, systemically excluded 
members of racial and ethnic minority groups from hous-
ing by robbing them of capital in the form of low-cost, 
stable mortgages and opportunities to build wealth, and 
the use of financial power by the Federal Government to 
segregate renters in public housing; 
(7) social inequities, such as differing access to qual-
ity health care, healthy food and safe drinking water, 
safe and affordable neighborhoods, education, job secu-
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rity, and reliable transportation, which affect health risks 
and outcomes; 
(8) exclusionary disciplinary practices (such as de-
tention and suspension) in primary education and even 
early education settings, which disproportionately affect 
children from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds, 
particularly Black children; and 
(9) that, as much as 60 percent of the health of a 
person in the United States can be determined by their 
ZIP Code; 
Whereas structural racism perpetuates ongoing knowledge 
gaps in data, research, and development, which produces 
unintended negative health outcomes for members of ra-
cial 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 rec-
ommendations for people from racial and ethnic minority 
groups; 
(2) medical research equipment and medical devices 
are typically developed by majority-White teams and 
therefore 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 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 oxy-
gen 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 
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rates of underdiagnosis or misdiagnosis in patients with 
darker skin; and 
(4) many health-related studies fail to include data 
on American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asian Americans, 
Native Hawaiians, or Pacific Islanders, or do not 
disaggregate data among those groups, 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 depres-
sion); 
Whereas there is evidence that racial and ethnic minority 
groups continue to face discrimination in the United 
States, examples of which include that— 
(1) social scientists have documented racial micro-
aggressions in contemporary United States society, in-
cluding— 
(A) assumptions that members of racial and 
ethnic minority groups are not citizens of the United 
States; 
(B) assumptions of lesser intelligence; 
(C) statements that convey color-blindness or 
denial of the importance of race; 
(D) assumptions of criminality or dangerous-
ness; 
(E) denial of individual racism; 
(F) promotion of the myth of meritocracy; 
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(G) assumptions that the cultural background 
and communication styles of an individual are patho-
logical; 
(H) treatment as a second-class citizen; and 
(I) environmental messages of being unwelcome 
or devalued; 
(2) compared to White Americans, Black Americans 
are 5 times more likely to report experiencing discrimina-
tion when interacting with the police, Hispanic or Latino 
Americans and Native Americans are nearly 3 times as 
likely, and Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pa-
cific Islanders are nearly twice as likely; 
(3) 42 percent of employees in the United States 
have experienced or witnessed racism in the workplace; 
(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 the scapegoating of people of East Asian 
and Southeast Asian descent for the COVID–19 pan-
demic, resulted in a surge of hate against Asian Ameri-
cans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, including 
increased harassment, discrimination, bullying, van-
dalism, and assault; 
(6) nearly 1⁄2 of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, 
and Pacific Islanders throughout the United States have 
experienced discrimination or unfair treatment that may 
be illegal and the majority of victims of discrimination 
name race or related characteristics as the reason for the 
discrimination; and 
(7) more than 50 percent of Hispanic or Latino 
adults experience at least 1 form of discrimination due to 
their racial or ethnic heritage, such as being treated as 
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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) that Black people are confronted and threatened 
by armed citizens while performing everyday tasks, such 
as jogging in neighborhoods, driving, or playing in a 
park; 
(2) that Black people are 3 times more likely to be 
killed by police than White people, and police violence is 
the sixth leading cause of death for young Black men; 
(3) the killings of Tamir Rice, Ahmaud Arbery, 
Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Elijah McClain, Jayland 
Walker, Jeenan Anderson, Timothy McCree Johnson, 
Jordan Neely, and countless other Black Americans by 
law enforcement; 
(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) that, since 2015, mass shootings around the 
country, such as in Buffalo, New York, and Charleston, 
South Carolina, serve as reminders of the unresolved his-
tory of racism in the United States and highlight 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 threat of brutality and violence adversely im-
pacting mental health among Black communities; 
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Whereas American Indians and Alaska Natives experience 
historical trauma, systemic oppression, and cultural geno-
cide that, even when not fatal, can cause severe physical 
or psychological harm; 
Whereas examples of such forms of violence include— 
(1) forced relocation, termination, and assimilation 
policies, such as boarding schools, that contributed to 
health disparities and legacies of trauma inflicted on in-
digenous people; 
(2) the Army attempting cultural genocide by insti-
gating numerous massacres, including the mass execution 
of 38 Dakota men in Minnesota, and the murder of 300 
Lakota people at the Battle of Wounded Knee, to eradi-
cate American Indians and Alaska Natives; 
(3) murder being the third leading cause of death 
for Native women, and 4⁄5 of indigenous women experi-
encing violence in their lifetime; 
(4) that, since 2016, there have been 5,712 cases of 
missing and murdered indigenous women and people 
across the United States, including 506 cases in 71 
urban cities and 153 cases missing from law enforcement 
databases, with those missing cases likely undercounting 
the actual number of cases due to the underreporting of 
cases within American Indian and Alaska Native commu-
nities; 
(5) that the overall death rate from suicide among 
American Indians and Alaska Natives is 20 percent high-
er compared to non-Hispanic White populations; and 
(6) cycles of violence that have overburdened indige-
nous communities to respond to increased levels of vio-
lence, including gender-based violence, human trafficking, 
suicide, and homicide with minimal resources; 
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Whereas American Indian, Alaska Natives, Hispanics or 
Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific 
Islanders experience racially motivated kidnapping, mur-
ders, and mass violence, such as shootings in Oak Creek, 
Wisconsin, El Paso and Allen, 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, mem-
bers of racial and ethnic minority groups have been at 
the forefront of civil rights movements for essential free-
doms, 
human 
rights, 
and 
equal 
protection 
for 
marginalized groups and continue to fight for racial, en-
vironmental, and economic justice today; 
Whereas racial inequities in health continue to persist be-
cause 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 proclaims 
racism as a pervasive health issue and alerts the people 
of the United States to the need to enact immediate and 
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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 govern-
ments to engage significant resources to empower the 
communities that are impacted: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) supports the resolutions drafted, introduced, 
and adopted by cities and localities across the 
United States declaring racism a public health crisis; 
(2) declares racism a public health crisis in the 
United States; 
(3) commits to— 
(A) establishing a nationwide strategy to 
address health disparities and inequities across 
all sectors in society; 
(B) dismantling systemic practices and 
policies that perpetuate racism; 
(C) advancing reforms to address years of 
neglectful and apathetic policies that have led 
to poor health outcomes for members of racial 
and ethnic minority groups; and 
(D) promoting efforts to address the social 
determinants of health for all racial and ethnic 
minority groups in the United States; and 
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(4) places a charge on the people of the United 
States to move forward with urgency to ensure that 
the United States stands firmly in honoring its 
moral purpose of advancing the self-evident truths 
that all people are created equal, that they are en-
dowed with certain unalienable rights, and that 
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap-
piness. 
Æ 
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