Working Group on Race and Racism Hosts Public Dialogue on the Health Impacts of Mass Incarceration

Posted October 11, 2017

The Working Group on Race and Racism in Contemporary Biomedicine hosted a public event on the Health Impacts of Mass Incarceration at Georgia Institute of Technology on Monday, October 2, 2017.

The interest in this topic was evident in standing room only Clary Theater at the Student Success Center, which was filled with students and faculty from Atlanta-based universities.

The dialogue started with short presentations from experts in the field including Evelyn Patterson from Vanderbilt University, Starla Hairston-Blanks from Morehouse School of Medicine, and Xochitl Bervera from the Racial Justice Action Center.

The second half of the event was an open discussion moderated by Manu Platt, associate professor of Biomedical Engineering and Co-Principal Investigator of the Working Group. The event highlighted the increased risk of chronic stress based on the experience of having a family member in jail. The guest speakers also provided ideas on pathways out of incarceration and brought awareness to challenges people face once they have spent time in jail.

This public dialogue is just one of many events hosted by the Working Group on Race and Racism in Contemporary Biomedicine. This group was founded in 2015 with seed funding from the Georgia Tech provost with the goal of building intellectual common ground among researchers coming from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, and sparking interdisciplinary and cross-institution collaborative research on race and racism in contemporary biomedical research. The Working Group receives ongoing support from the College of Science and the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

For more information, visit the Race and Biomedicine Working Group website.