CDC's Efforts to Address Racism as a Fundamental Driver of Health Disparities

Building Partnerships

CDC works with public health partners to reduce, and ultimately, eliminate racial and ethnic inequities in health by addressing the structural and social conditions that create them. We are also committed to working further upstream to address racism as the fundamental driver of these inequities.

Nationwide Public Health Efforts to Address Racism:

• Project REFOCUS (Racial Ethnic Framing of Community Informed and Unifying Surveillance)—Funded in fall 2020, and led by Howard University and UCLA, the goal of Project REFOCUS is to explore how to develop and expand public health surveillance and social listening approaches that track, in real time, how social stigma is affecting people.
• Reducing Cancer Disparities Through Partnerships—CDC awarded funds to three research organizations to help us understand what works to advance health equity in cancer. These projects are some of the first that address systemic racism as a key driver of health inequities in communities of color.
• Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH)—CDC's REACH Initiative is a national program that explicitly focuses on reducing disparities for multiple racial and ethnic groups in communities with high rates of chronic diseases.
• Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative—As a key implementer of this federal initiative, CDC is working to overcome barriers to HIV prevention and treatment as well as racial and ethnic disparities in 57 areas of the country that are hardest hit by the epidemic, and account for 2/3 of new infections among Black/African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos.
• Let's Stop HIV Together—In cooperation with community partners, CDC designed and delivered this education and awareness campaign to help reduce stigma and discrimination and encourage people at increased risk for and with HIV to seek vital testing, treatment, and prevention services.
• Health Equity in Action—CDC's Health Equity in Action webpage showcases CDC's collaborative efforts to address health disparities among populations at higher risk for COVID-19. New projects are added monthly.
• CDC John R. Lewis Undergraduate Public Health Scholars (Lewis Scholars) Program—These programs provide internship and fellowship opportunities for qualified undergraduate and graduate students to gain meaningful experiences in public health and minority health settings.
• Dr. James A. Ferguson Emerging Infectious Diseases Fellowship—These programs promote diversity among future public health research leaders by providing internship and fellowship opportunities for qualified undergraduate and graduate students to gain meaningful experiences in public health settings.