The intersection of social work and health–particularly when it comes to people of color’s lives and experiences–is an essential pillar to building a more equitable health care system. For Black History Month, BU Experts talked to professors across the university about their work to progress Black health & wellness, including BUSSW Professors Phillipe Copeland and Christina Lee.
Excerpt from “Black History Month 2022: Promoting, Recognizing, and Celebrating Black Health and Wellness” by Katherine Gianni, Thalia Platta, & Molly Gluck:
Dr. Phillipe Copeland, abolitionist and clinical assistant professor at BU’s School of Social Work: ‘Black Lives Matter’ has reminded us that the ultimate cost of systemic anti-Black racism is life itself. One of the most brutal and grotesque life-taking systems affecting Black lives is the criminal legal system. In recent years, the American Public Health Association has drawn attention to this problem, including law enforcement violence and carceral systems. My work for health justice prioritizes exposing the harm done through law enforcement violence and carceral systems, countering narratives that rationalize it, and building institutional capacity to mitigate and help people recover from it. My ultimate goal is to reduce and ultimately replace ‘law and order’ approaches to public safety with public health approaches.
Dr. Christina Lee, associate professor at BU’s School of Social Work and director of the research core at the Center for Innovation in Social Work and Health: What has set me apart from many psychologists, especially when I started out, is that I have always looked upstream to understand the causes of unhealthy substance use in minority groups — through both social context and conditions of living — and targeted those causes in my intervention work. Unhealthy substance use is rooted in structural conditions and social policies, such as the War On Drugs, that lead to systematic marginalization, deprivation and inequity. We have tended to view unhealthy substance use solely as the result of individual failings. However, substance use, particularly among minority groups, is the result of structural determinants such as racist policies, practices and stigma.”
Read more here here.