Contraindicated Populus Radio

The California Pre-Term Birth Initiative at UCSF is forging a new approach to community-based participatory research. Hear from Alexis Cobbins and and Shannell Williams on new research strategies they have implemented as they work to eliminate racial disparities in pre-term birth.
Further Reading:
DataCenter: Research for JusticeCalifornia Pre-Term Birth Initiative, UCSF, Developing a Research Strategy in Partnership with Communities Affected by Preterm Birth 

The term “school-to-prison pipeline” describes a phenomenon wherein children who should be getting an education instead end up trapped in the criminal justice system and the prison industrial complex due racial discrimination and the criminalization of learning differences, trauma, and behavioral issues. Imagine if we treated the challenges some children have in the classroom as health problems and health injustice challenges requiring health interventions instead of disciplinary measures. In this episode, we speak with two researchers who are a part of a new initiative to develop just such an approach.
Further Reading:
ACLU, School-to-Prison Pipeline Mary Ellen Flannery, The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Time to Shut it Down, National Education Association (January 5th, 2015). Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, School-to-Prison-PipelineMichelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New Press, 2010. 

The Britney Spears case has brought national attention to the conservatorship system in the United States. But in most ways, this case is exceptional and obscures the ways in which conservatorship affects older and disabled people, who are disproportionately people of color, women, people who are socially-isolated, and who are living in poverty. In this episode, we will talk to a physician working in San Francisco’s safety net health system about the challenges for physicians, lawyers, and others trying to advocate for this population.
Further Reading:
ABA, Guardianship and Supported Decision Making Christine Ritchie, Advancing Health Equity for People Who are Homebound, The Playbook (September 23, 2021). 

On this episode, Christine Lin and William Martinez discuss the conditions that lead people to seek asylum, how asylum law and policy function as a social determinant of health, and how health and legal professionals can collaborate to support asylum seekers.
Further Reading:
UCSF’s Health and Human Rights Initiative Physicians for Human Rights CGRS’ Website CGRS’ Recommended Action Items 

In response to racial health disparities in maternal mortality rates, California passed SB-464 (aka the California Dignity in Pregnancy and Childbirth Act), which mandates implicit bias training for perinatal health care providers. Sarah Garrett joins us to discuss her research on implementation of SB-464 and Linda Jones discusses the need for and importance of this recent legislation.
Futher Reading:
Summary of the MEND studyAnnie Dade, Building Ant-Racist Capacity with California’s Perinatal Healthcare Providers: Implementation Analysis of CA SB-464, UCSF California Preterm Birth Initiative, 2021.  Black Women Birthing Justice Julia Oparah and Alicia Bonaparte, eds., Birthing Justice: Black Women, Pregnancy and Childbirth, Taylor and Francis, 2016.  Linda Jones, Julia Chinyere Oparah, Helen Arega, et al., Battling Over Birth, Black Women and the Maternal Health Crisis, Praeclarus Press, 2018. Mothers for Mothers Postpartum Justice Project The Elephant Circle

What is health injustice? How do we recognize it? And what does law have to do with it? On this episode of Contraindicated, experts Liz Tobin-Tyler and Raquaijjah Yearby offer a primer on health injustice and inequity. Listeners can expect to learn about social determinants of health, the role of law in health inequity, interventions that can help, how people can protect themselves, as well as grassroots efforts to address health injustice.
Further Reading:
Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler and Joel Teitelbaum, Essentials of Health Justice: A Primer, Jones and Bartlett, 2019. Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler and Joel Teitelbaum, Essentials of Health Justice: Law, Policy and Structural Change, Jones and Bartlett, forthcoming 2022. Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler, Ellen Lawton, Kathleen Conroy, et al., Poverty, Health and Law: Readings and Cases for Medical-Legal Partnership, Carolina Academic Press, 2011.National Center for Medical Legal Partnership Ruqaiijah Yearby, Structural Racism: The Root Cause of the Social Determinants of Health, Bill of Health (September 22, 2020). Ruqaiijah Yearby and Seema Mohapatra, Law, Structural racism, and the COVID-19 Pandemic, Journal of Law and Biosciences (June 28, 2020).