Launched in 2022, the Collaborative for Transformative Public Health is based at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. The Collaborative consists of a multi-racial team of public health scholars and activists who have worked with public health institutions, universities, and grassroots organizations to embed anti-racism within their practice.
The work of the Collaborative for Transformational Public Health supports Antiracist Transformation in Public Health institutions, research, and training. As a member of the Collaborative’s leadership team, Dr. Creary shares her antiracist public health portfolio to inform this work.
RWJF
Co-investigators: Whitney Peoples, Paul Fleming, F.W. Williamson (ARISE)
The Anti Racist Initiative for Strengthening Equity (ARISE) in Governmental Public Health
We’re exploring how governmental public health can play a stronger role in advancing health equity and justice by addressing structural racism. Our work focuses on two main questions:
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How can public health build and sustain trust with local communities, especially in ways that support anti-racist systems?
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What does it look like for governmental public health to partner with local communities to actively disrupt structural racism?
To answer these, we’re drawing on a mix of approaches—literature reviews, in-depth interviews, and new analysis of existing data. Together, these efforts will help shape a model for a more equitable, justice-oriented public health workforce and system.
U-M Poverty Solutions, U-M School of Public Health
Co-investigator: Paul Fleming
Health Equity via Anti-Racist Teaching
Institutional Interventions toward Anti-racist Public Health Pedagogy
Across the nation and in an effort to push the needle on creating institutional change, communities and entities have begun to formally claim racism as a public health issue. Yet, as universities have also begun to turn an intentional eye toward institutional change, there is still a gap with how anti-racism is systematically managed and discussed in public health classrooms. While some public health scholars have been proponents of this for some time, people who train future public health professionals (i.e. faculty in public health degree programs) have little guidance available on anti-racist pedagogy and practices specific to public health. Using a mixed-methods approach and collaborating with School of Public Health faculty, staff and students, a well as existing public health community partners, we aim to (1) Refine a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Anti-Racist Teaching for Public Health with input from key stakeholders; (2) Pilot test a MOOC on Anti-Racist Teaching for Public Health to determine changes in faculty awareness; and (3) Identify institutional barriers to faculty adopting anti-racist teaching principles
Office of the Vice President for Research, in support of the Provost’s Anti-Racism Initiative, and the National Center for Institutional Diversity’s Anti-Racism Collaborative
Co-investigators: Whitney Peoples, Paul Fleming
The ARCC Towards Justice Project: A pilot project for developing an anti-racist public health department
The intertwined pandemics of racism and COVID-19 have been deadly for Black Americans and other communities of color. They have put a spotlight on public health and the important ways that the field must become explicitly anti-racist to advocate for institutional and systemic changes that will facilitate good health. The Washtenaw County Board of Health passed a resolution June 30, 2020 explicitly declaring racism as a public health crisis and confirming our collective commitment to health equity in Washtenaw County. Though important, public health professionals at local health departments have little guidance available on how to transform into anti-racist institutions. This application proposes community-based collaborative research that addresses racism at the institutional level instead of the usual practice of trying to fix communities. Using the Washtenaw County Health Department (WCHD) as our partner, we propose to implement and evaluate the Anti-Racist County towards Justice (ARC towards Justice) project. Our research proposal aims to:
Aim 1: Conduct formative research to identify community perceptions and baseline knowledge, attitudes, and practices of WCHD staff related to racism at WCHD.
Aim 2a: Co-create with WCHD and WC community members a Justice Impact Assessment.
Aim 2b: Apply the Justice Impact Assessment within WCHD to assess and revise one area of internal policies and practices and one WCHD external community
Aim 3: Conduct a mixed-methods process and impact evaluation
