Roundtable: "Urban Public Health and the Fight Against Lead Poisoning: Implications for the Age of the Coronavirus"

This interdisciplinary roundtable will explore urban and environmental inequalities, specifically the way in which urban built environments create illness in the past and present. Spatial segregation and unequal, discriminatory housing policies have long confined non-white communities to districts with poor housing stock and limited access to public health resources. The roundtable will consider racism, government responses to health threats, and public health activism in both twentieth century activism against lead paint and new concerns over housing and health threats created by COVID-19. The roundtable will also consider how the health risks of poor housing in the past can illustrate historical roots of seemingly new challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic for urban Black communities.

Speakers:

Dr. Johanna Fernandez, Baruch College, CUNY

Dr. Robert Gioielli, University of Cincinnati

Dr. Taylor Desloge, Washington University.

Comment: Dr. Mindy Fullilove, The New School.

Thursday, April 22 2:30 to 4 PM Eastern.

This event was organized in partnership between Edmund Russell, ASEH president, and the Urban History Association.