Oakland leaders have formally declared racism to be a public health crisis. The declaration was adopted unanimously by the Oakland City Council.
According to a city report, residents of Oakland’s majority Black and Latino neighborhoods live an average of 14 to 15 years less than people in the city’s predominantly white neighborhoods.
“Similar disparities between Black Oaklanders and their white peers can be observed in preventable hospitalizations, rates of diabetes, asthma, hypertension, and heart disease, death rates due to opioid overdose, babies born with very low birth weight, infant mortality, and beyond,” the report states.
Those disparities became more obvious during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, Black people accounted for 33.8% of COVID-19 deaths in Oakland, despite comprising just 23.8% of the city’s population.
Oakland will now set aside $350,000 to fund two new positions in the Department of Race and Equity. It’s part of the city’s stated effort to prioritize equity and address the public health impacts of structural racism.
Read more at NPR and the San Francisco Chronicle.