The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Thursday that it is restructuring its Office of Health Equity (OHE) to focus more on serving racial minorities, foreign nationals and members of the LGBT community.
Under the CDC's new organizational rules, OHE will “align programs, practices, policies, and budget decisions” to take into account health disparities based on race, sex, and sexual orientation. According to According to an announcement published in the Federal Register, another CDC division, the Office of Minority Health (OMH), will help develop agency-wide guidance documents based on this reorganization and will work with OHE to improve the health of racial and ethnic minority populations.
A CDC spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the reorganization represents a “realignment of business functions” but “there will be no change in scope or priorities.” (Related story: CDC defenders address racism, 'injustice' of incarcerating criminals to prevent violence)
Under the newly restructured CDC, the OHE director will be tasked with a mandate aimed at reducing health disparities among different groups, including “leading and coordinating the planning and implementation of an agency-wide strategy” to address health disparities experienced by LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, and people living in rural areas.
It's unclear what this “agency-wide strategy” means and how it will affect how CDC serves the country as a whole.
Exterior of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)
The director of OHE is also asked to develop training materials to help professionals better care for “disproportionately affected communities,” such as ethnic minorities and foreign-born people, during emergencies. To accomplish this, the director is instructed to seek out people who “can assist in culturally and linguistically appropriate ways” and engage with “community leaders” during emergency responses.
The reorganization will see OMH support OHE's mission by providing “subject matter expertise” on racial and ethnic minority health.
The new mission statements for OMH and OHE include multiple requirements for each office to apply an “intersectionality lens” in conducting their work.
“Intersectionality” is a term often used by liberal activists to describe how having multiple marginalized identities can have compounded and negative effects on one's life: Black women, for example, may face obstacles as a result of both their race and their gender.
“Long-standing, systemic social and health inequities, including those introduced or exacerbated by federal, state, and local policies, put some population groups at higher risk of getting sick, have worse overall health, and experience worse outcomes when they do get sick.” According to A CDC webpage defining what a “health equity lens” is: “Because individuals belong to multiple groups, health and social inequities may overlap.”
Under the Biden-Harris administration, the CDC has placed an increased emphasis on addressing so-called “inequalities.” For example, in a draft health plan that was mistakenly emailed to the DCNF, the agency recommended addressing racism as a preferred way to combat community violence.
“Racism, economic injustice, and other systemic inequities contribute to the heightened risk and persistent increase in violence that some communities are currently experiencing,” the CDC wrote in response to expected criticism of the plan.
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