Yamrot Negussie – författare

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health.

Only part of an individual''s health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways.

Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Alcohol-impaired driving is an important health and social issue as it remains a major risk to Americans'' health today, surpassing deaths per year of certain cancers, HIV/AIDS, and drownings, among others, and contributing to long-term disabilities from head and spinal injuries. Progress has been made over the past decades towards reducing these trends, but that progress has been incremental and has stagnated more recently.

Getting to Zero Alcohol-Impaired Driving Fatalities examines which interventions (programs, systems, and policies) are most promising to prevent injuries and death from alcohol-impaired driving, the barriers to action and approaches to overcome them, and which interventions need to be changed or adopted. This report makes broad-reaching recommendations that will serve as a blueprint for the nation to accelerate the progress in reducing alcohol-impaired driving fatalities.

Children are the foundation of the United States, and supporting them is a key component of building a successful future. However, millions of children face health inequities that compromise their development, well-being, and long-term outcomes, despite substantial scientific evidence about how those adversities contribute to poor health. Advancements in neurobiological and socio-behavioral science show that critical biological systems develop in the prenatal through early childhood periods, and neurobiological development is extremely responsive to environmental influences during these stages. Consequently, social, economic, cultural, and environmental factors significantly affect a child''s health ecosystem and ability to thrive throughout adulthood.

Vibrant and Healthy Kids: Aligning Science, Practice, and Policy to Advance Health Equity builds upon and updates research from Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity (2017) and From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development (2000). This report provides a brief overview of stressors that affect childhood development and health, a framework for applying current brain and development science to the real world, a roadmap for implementing tailored interventions, and recommendations about improving systems to better align with our understanding of the significant impact of health equity.

On June 11 and June 12, 2019, the National Academies convened a workshop to explore the growing understanding of how the interplay between humans and microbes affects host physiology and causes noncommunicable diseases. Discussions included an overview of colliding epidemics, emerging research on associations between infectious and noncommunicable diseases, risks posed by chronic diseases to the development and severity of infectious diseases, and the influence of the microbiome. Workshop participants also examined the challenges and opportunities of convergence, the integration of health care delivery models and interventions, potential approaches for research, policy, and practice in the immediate-term, and potential directions for the long-term. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

The history of the U.S. criminal justice system is marked by racial inequality and sustained by present day policy. Large racial and ethnic disparities exist across the several stages of criminal legal processing, including in arrests, pre-trial detention, and sentencing and incarceration, among others, with Black, Latino, and Native Americans experiencing worse outcomes. The historical legacy of racial exclusion and structural inequalities form the social context for racial inequalities in crime and criminal justice. Racial inequality can drive disparities in crime, victimization, and system involvement.

Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice: Science, Practice, and Policy synthesizes the evidence on community-based solutions, noncriminal policy interventions, and criminal justice reforms, charting a path toward the reduction of racial inequalities by minimizing harm in ways that also improve community safety. Reversing the effects of structural racism and severing the close connections between racial inequality, criminal harms such as violence, and criminal justice involvement will involve fostering local innovation and evaluation, and coordinating local initiatives with state and federal leadership.

This report also highlights the challenge of creating an accurate, national picture of racial inequality in crime and justice: there is a lack of consistent, reliable data, as well as data transparency and accountability. While the available data points toward trends that Black, Latino, and Native American individuals are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and given more severe punishments compared to White individuals, opportunities for improving research should be explored to better inform decision-making.