When we think of the definition of “public health,” we often think of it in narrow, clinical terms: health insurance, access to hospitals, or patient care. However, public health is much more expansive than that. There is a deep history of social, racial, gendered, and economic inequity that denies certain communities the right to heal - the effects of which we feel in the present day. One’s gender, one’s ethnicity, and even one’s zip code tragically predicts health prognosis.
