Kimball Lecture: COVID-19 and Communities of Color, David R. Williams, PhD

David Williams, PHD, the Florence & Laura Norman Professor of Public Health at Harvard University, delivered this year’s Kimball Lecture by video before the meeting. He began his remarks by offering data about the racial disparity in U.S. deaths from COVID-19, with Blacks dying at 2.3 times the rate of whites.

To address this set of problems, Dr. Williams called for creating “communities of opportunity to minimize, neutralize and dismantle the systems of racism that create inequities in health.” His solutions included investing more heavily in early childhood, increasing taxes and governmental transfers to reduce child poverty, increasing the minimum wage, and promoting marriage.

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