TThis edition of the Journal of the Healthcare, Science and the Humanities includes selected articles from the Public Health Ethics Intensive Course (PHEI). The PHEI was a part of the Commemoration of the 21th Anniversary of 1997 Presidential Apology by William J. Clinton for the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee, conducted between 1932 to 1972. The Commemoration Events also highlighted the 1999 opening of the National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care (National Bioethics Center). The overall theme for the year’s activities was “Ethics Across Generations” The theme alludes to the importance of intergenerational trust and trustworthiness that must continue particularly, in times, such as these. There was energy, excitement and optimism among the young people who attended the activities, and the wisdom, experience, faith, as well as optimism, among the elders was palpable. The Public Health Ethics Intensive (PHEI) course attracted a cross section presenters from several different disciples working in a variety of professional areas.
The National Bioethics Center’s planned activities spanning the entire week. On Monday morning, April 9rd descendant family members participated in the annual healing session, facilitated by Drs. Edward and Anne Wimberley. Later, they conducted a memorial service honoring the legacy of their fathers. That evening they hosted the 1st Annual Scholarship Banquet at the Anderson Auditorium, Washington Chapel A.M.E. Church in Tuskegee, Alabama. The PHEI began on Tuesday, April 10th. On Friday April 14, the Annual Apology Banquet and Luncheon was held on the campus of Tuskegee University. Prior to the Banquet, as one part of the four and one half-day Commemorative Events, Macon County students who attend Tuskegee Institute Middle School and Booker T. Washington High School participated in an interactive half-day session focused on Optimal Health. Over the last six years, a special guest speaker was invited to speak to the students from Tuskegee Institute Middle School on various domains of Optimal Health. This year, the topic was on optimal physical health, and Chukwudi Onwuanchi-Saunders MD, MPH, facilitated the session. Optimal Health is “the best possible emotional, intellectual, physical, spiritual and social-economic aliveness that we can attain.” Over 100 youth participated in the session.
This edition includes three articles that were presented during the PHEI and two others, one on food deserts and the other on conspiracy beliefs and antiretroviral medications for HIV/AIDS among HIV positive African Americans. The first article is co-authored by, Dr. Chukwudi Onwuachi-Saunders, Public Health Consultant/Author and Bioethics Visiting Scholar, Que P. Dang, MPH, Director of Student Equity, Cuesta College and Jedidah Murray, BS, and first-year MPH student at Tuskegee University. The topic was addressed earlier by Dr. Onwuanchi-Saunders in the PHEI opening session on ethics and reproductive justice. Their article, “Reproductive Rights, Reproductive Justice: Redefining Challenges to Create Optimal Health for All Women” expands the scope of reproductive justice to include the complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, social, and economic wellbeing of women and girls, based on the full achievement and protection of women’s human rights. They reframed the language and realities of women of color related to sexual and reproductive health issues. Their article expands the reproductive health framework, particularly for women of color. Their article also recounts the history and challenges of reproductive health/right within the context of Optimal Health.
Latasha McCrary, JD, a Senior Staff Attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center is uniquely positioned to address ethics and the law during her response presentation during the PHEI course. Her paper is entitled, “To Be Young, Gifted and Black, and Powerless: Disenfranchisement in the New Crow Era,” explores the challenges to be young and Black, particularly if you are gifted. African American youth are at an increased risk of alienation from systems that are supposed to help them. African American youths are disproportionally low income; they often live in resource limited communities, their high school graduation rates are lower than many other racial/ethnic groups, and unemployment rates are high. Their incarnation rates are also disproportionately high, resulting in the New Jim Crow. Her article recounts some of the reasons why and what can be done to address these problems.
The article by Rueben Warren, DDS, MPH, Dr. P.H. MDiv, emanates from his presentation at the PHEI. He focuses on challenges and opportunities at ages 45–64, when the lessons learned from earlier years should provide opportunities to maximize ethics and population well-being. In the midst longstanding racial and ethnic health disparities, Optimal Health is still possible. Operational definitions for ethics, bioethics and public health ethics are discussed and individual and group strategies to maximize population health are provided.
The Ashanti-Ali Davis’, BA, a 2nd year MPH student in the Graduate Public Health Program, College of Veterinary Medicine, Tuskegee University, entitled, Synergizing Oral and Systemic Health in a Food Desert, details the importance of understanding the relationship between oral and systemic health. He argues that it is essential to synergize oral and systemic health by enhancing the availability, accessibility and acceptability of fresh fruits and vegetables, particularly in a food desert. He describes an applied research project that he conducted in a southern, rural, low income county that is a food desert. He documents the quantity, quality and costs of fresh, frozen and canned fruits and vegetables, and recommends strategies to address this public health challenge.
Andrew Zekeri, PhD, Professor of Sociology at Tuskegee University, provides an intriguing article entitled, “Conspiracy Beliefs about Antiretroviral Medicines for HIV/AIDS among African American Living with HIV.” Dr. Zekeri has published several articles on HIV/AIDS and African Americans in Alabama Black Belt Counties. This article advances his work in a time when HIV/AIDS is considered a chronic disease for many, but remains an acute life-threatening condition, particularly for African American women.
Dr. Brandon Isome, the MERCK Public Health Ethics Fellow at the National Bioethics Center has work in areas of theological leadership and religious life for many years. His Commentary is timely, in that, he writes about a Professor-Pupil relationship and two very important evolutions of Liberation Theology: Black Liberation Theology and Women’s Liberation Theology. Liberation Theology grew out of a progressive movement within the Catholic Church by Gustavo Gutierez, a Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest. Black Liberation Theology was championed by Dr. James Cone, particularly in the academy. His death in April, 2018 demands constant and continuous conversations about his work and his legacy. Some argue that Black Liberation Theology was started in Detroit, Michigan by a United Church of Christ minister, Rev. Albert Cleage, in the 1960s, when he founded the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church. Dr. Katie Cannon, an African American woman theologian and academician, who studied under Cone, draws upon her lived experiences of plausible oppressive relationships, that a liberation theology is needed to resolve. These relationships are between Black woman and: white women, Black men, and what it means to be a Black woman.
The articles provide an interesting reflections on the relationships and interactions between spheres of ethics, the law, race/ethnicity, age, sex/gender, quality of life and Optimal Health. Please enjoy the readings.