Dr. Amani Allen is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health. Her research focuses on racial and socioeconomic health inequities and the measurement and study of racism as a social determinant of health. Specifically, her work investigates how racism gets ‘under the skin’ to impact psychological well-being and biological functioning. Dr. Allen has published in top scientific journals and her work has been featured in major news outlets including CNN, MSNBC, NPR, CBSNews, Essence Magazine, US News & World Report, and The Atlantic. Allen received her BS in Biology from the University of Maryland, College Park; her MPH from the George Washington University; and her PhD in health and social policy from the Johns Hopkins University.

Highlighted Research:

• Nuru-Jeter A, Michaels EK, Thomas M, Reeves AN, Thorpe R, LaVeist TA. Relative Roles of Race and Socioeconomic Position in Studies of Health Inequalities : A matter of interpretation? Ann Rev Public Health. 2018; 39:169-188.
• Nuru-Jeter A, Thomas M, Michaels EK, Reeves A, Okoye U, Price M, Hasson R, Syme SL, Chae DH. Racial Discrimination, Educational Attainment and Biological Dysregulation among Midlife African American Women. Psychoneuroendocrinol. 2019; 99:225-235.
• Allen AM, Wang Y, Chae DH, Price M, Powell W, Steed T, Black AR, Dhabhar F, Marquez-Magaña L, Woods-Giscombe CL. Racial Discrimination, Superwoman Schema, and Allostatic Load: Exploring an Integrative Stress-Coping Model among African-American Women. Ann NY Acad Sci. 2019.
• Daniels K, Valdez Z, Chae DH, Allen AM. Direct and Vicarious Racial Discrimination at Three Life-stages and Preterm Labor: Results from the African American Women’s Heart & Health Study. Matern Child Health J. 2020; 24(11): 1387-95. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-020-03003-4.
• Allen AM, Abram C, Pothamsetty N, Jacobo A, Lewis L, Ramya Maddali S, Azurin M, Chow E, Sholinbeck M, Rincon A, Keller A, Lu M. Leading Change at Berkeley Public Health: Building the Antiracist Community for Justice and Social Transformative Change. Preventing Chronic Disease. 2023; 20: E48. doi: 10.5888/pcd20.220370

Wilhelmenia “Mina” Wilson is Executive Director at Healthy Black Families, Inc., a non-profit organization in Berkeley, CA that organizes individuals, families, and the organizations that serve them, into collaborative communities empowered with skills to advance social equity and justice with a focus on Black people, families and communities. She is a descendant of the African Diaspora. Her ancestors arrived, as enslaved people, at Somerset Plantation in Creswell, North Carolina on July 10, 1786. Leveraging human resilience, using education as a means to create personal and community agency and law/policy to dismantle state sanctioned oppression, her lineage has ascended in the United States through 6 generations.

Website: Healthy Black Familes, Inc

Suzette Chaumette, MPH is Board Pres. at Healthy Black Families, researcher & social entrepreneur with over 25 years in patient & community engagement. She focuses on prevention & food access to reduce disease risk in vulnerable groups. Suzette teaches people how to grow food forests in small spaces, compost food waste, & reduce climate impacts by using less plastic. She has over 22,000 followers across multiple platforms, where she shares simple techniques for lifestyle changes so that adjustments are easy to adopt & longer term. Suzette hosts three podcasts – The Food Indy Podcast, The Positively Green Podcast and Unpack the Real Stuff, connecting people to public health, social and environmental topics. She loves growing, cooking, and eating food!

Highlighted Work:

• Healthy Black Families
• Food Indy: Website and Podcast
• Positively Green Podcast
• Social media: Instagram @ReduceReuseSuze and Tiktok @foodindy

Healthy Black Families, Inc. a community based nonprofit public health organization based in Berkeley, CA, works to advance social equity and justice with a focus on Black individuals and families by providing programs and developing policy. They provide people with knowledge, skills, and strategies to make social systems and policies more equitable for Black people and communities.

Website: https://healthyblackfam.org/

The Institute for Healing Justice & Equity (the Institute or IHJE) aims to eliminate disparities caused by systemic oppression and to improve individual and community health and well-being through systems change and deep community partnership. As part of these core goals, IHJE created a panel of content experts, community advocates, and organizations called the Anti-Racism Consortium. Each consortium member has a history of working to:

• develop and advocate for anti-racist health policy;
• address the root causes of health inequities; and
• develop programs and interventions that address multiple levels of medical racism, structural racism in health and the health care system.

In the Critical Futures podcast series, Consortium members describe their work and perspectives related to anti-racist health policy as well as structural racism in the healthcare system. These interviews are also conducted with a community partner that the members have worked alongside — with the goal of highlighting how to deeply work with community in a way that shares power and that moves us all towards liberation.