The Kennedy Center’s website still lists

“If we’re not going to name racism in the first place, then we’re not going to start to develop solutions to address it,” said Dara Mendez, who teaches epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh and studied the early declarations. “... Then the next step is (asking) what are the actions behind it? ... Are there resources? Is there community action?”Lilliann Paine wanted to see everyday public health work focus on the intersection of racism and public health, and in 2018 brought the idea to the Wisconsin Public Health Association. Milwaukee, where Black people are the

became one of the first cities in the country to adopt a declaration in 2019.“If racism as a public health crisis was truly operationalized, we would have more people graduating from high school. If it was truly operationalized, people could live to their full potential and not worry about being mistaken by a police officer for having a gun,” said Paine, who was the chief of staff at the city’s health department from late 2019 to March 2021. “And those aren’t changes you can speak to overnight.”Wisconsin’s biggest city now has a

, released in December, that wants to address racism as a public health crisis in various ways — from increasing voter registration to improving infant mortality rates, which are three times higher among Black infants than white infants.The plan also highlights the need to improve housing conditions, and one of the health department’s key priorities is addressing lead poisoning in older homes. Black children in Milwaukee are up to 2.7 times more likely to have elevated blood lead levels compared to other races, according to the community health improvement plan.

“When the built environment is essentially a poison in your families, you’re going to see health outcomes that affect that,” health department commissioner Dr. Michael Totoraitis said, giving an example that kids might be “deemed problematic at school because they were lead-poisoned and have permanent brain damage.”

Deanna Branch’s 11-year old son, Aidan, got lead poisoning when he was a toddler. She pointed to the dilapidated housing that she and many Black Milwaukee residents have to live in.ATLANTA (AP) — Natasha Nelson, a 35-year old entrepreneur in Stone Mountain, Georgia, didn’t have an innate sense of social norms. She didn’t know why people meeting for the first time would choose to engage in small talk instead of deep conversations, or why people like to make their beds.

Then, a few years ago, she was diagnosed with, just after her youngest daughter received the same.

“If your life has always felt like it was in chaos and you don’t feel comfortable and you don’t feel like you thrive and you just feel like you’re constantly surviving and going from one thing to the next, what you got to lose?” Nelson said, encouraging people to seek a diagnosis.Common signs of autism include trouble with social communication and a fixation on certain routines or topics — Nelson says “people have become my special interest now” — and may go unnoticed during someone’s childhood.