Applying a disaster recovery framework to racism as a public health crisis: From theory to practice

Amidst the intersecting crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing police brutality against Black people, jurisdictions across the United States declared racism to be a public health crisis in the summer of 2020. According to the American Public Health Association (APHA), 233 jurisdictions have published such declarations as of January 2022, with 92% of declarations being made at the city or county level. What does it mean to frame racism as a public health crisis? This paper explores and compares theoretical and practical definitions of disasters and crises from the planning field through a review of the literature. The author concludes that racism can be conceptualized as a slow-onset disaster. With the understanding that racism can be understood as a disaster, the author demonstrates the utility of leveraging a disaster recovery framework to drive a comprehensive response to address racism as a public health crisis.