Focusing Event Impact on Public Health Assessment/Racism as Public Health Crisis

• In Event: Symposium on Governmental Image, Reputation, and Professionalism: Citizen Engagement: Communication, Satisfaction, and Stakeholder Involvement

Abstract

In early 2020, two events impacted local, state, national and international politics. The first event, the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in late 2019, soon highlighted issues such as social and health inequities among various racial and ethnic populations across the United States (McNeely, Schintler, and Stabile 2020). The second event, the death of George Floyd in May 2020 due to excessive police force by police, led to worldwide protests against racism and calls to defund the police across the United States (Acheson 2022 Silverstein 2021). Both events individually could be considered focusing events (Birkland 1998) that could impact policy in multiple issue are-as including police reform and healthcare policy and practice, among others. This research exam-ines whether evaluative theory and/or analysis of community health needs were impacted by these two focusing events or whether a state agency declared racism as a public health crisis, finding pre-liminary evidence that these two events did have some impact.

Author

• John A. Grummel, Upper Iowa University