Sharing graphs during our interview that show higher rates of premature mortality
in Black people than in all other racial and ethnic groups in New York City (NYC),
Michelle Morse comments: “That to me is the ultimate example of how racism impacts
health; Black people are dying young for no reason other than the net impact of racism.”
Morse is the Deputy Commissioner for the Center for Health Equity and Community Wellness
(CHECW) and inaugural Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at the NYC Department of Health
and Mental Hygiene, NY, USA.
Nada Al-Nashif, who became UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2020, has
had a long career in which she has focused on the mobilisation of knowledge for inclusive,
just, and sustainable societies. Under her leadership, the Office of the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights (OHCHR) is spearheading the Agenda Towards Transformative Change
for Racial Justice and Equality, which provides a roadmap for making concrete positive
changes in the lives of Africans and people of African descent.
Marie A Bernard was born in New York City and moved to Oklahoma City, USA, as a young
child when her physician parents established a private practice there. “They were
told that there were a lot of opportunities for Black doctors in Oklahoma”, she says.
“It was segregated at that time, segregation that persisted in southern parts of the
US for many years…I grew up in a segregated system until doors opened as I entered
high school.” Following in her parents’ footsteps, Bernard studied medicine at the
University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1976, before training in internal medicine
and becoming a faculty member in the general internal medicine section at Temple University
Hospital and School of Medicine in Philadelphia, PA, where she also served as Chief
Resident.
Microbiologist Senjuti Saha is the Director of the non-profit Child Health Research
Foundation (CHRF), in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and a strong advocate for equity in global
health research. When she received a grant in 2018 to set up a sequencing facility
at CHRF and got the non-governmental organisation s first sequencing machine, she
says, “I wanted to show the world that you could be anywhere in the world and be able
to sequence. You don’t have to ship samples out to the US or UK. You can sequence
wherever you are and everybody s capable.
Margo Greenwood was born in Wetaskiwin, AB, Canada, to a Cree father and English mother,
and was raised and educated in Ponoka, AB. Both places are located in Treaty 6 territory.
Tragically, Greenwood lost both her parents, “in my mid-teens”, she recalls, “and
so I was really on my own”. It was an experience that influenced the focus of her
work. Greenwood is now Professor in the Education programme at the University of Northern
British Columbia (UNBC) in Prince George, BC, Canada. She is also Academic Leader
of the National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health, hosted at UNBC, Interim
Scientific Director of the Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health, Canadian Institutes
of Health Research in Ottawa, ON, Canada, and has recently been appointed to the Canadian
Senate.