Graphic Panel, Building Health Equity

Structural racism is a silent killer. Many conditions of daily life affect people’s health, including access to transportation, education, safe housing, nutritious food, clean air and water, and green space. Economic policies in the United States have routinely confined people of color in neighborhoods lacking these essential resources.

Pandemics, from cholera in the early 1900s to AIDS in the 1990s, have impacted marginalized communities profoundly. These communities have been burdened disproportionately by COVID-19, sustaining higher rates of illness, death, and job loss than wealthier populations. In 2020, artists and activists denounced police violence against Black people, attacks on Asian Americans, excessive incarceration, and threats to essential workers.

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics.