Critical Futures

Melody Goodman is the Vice Dean for Research, Professor of Biostatistics, and Director of the Center for Anti-Racism, Social Justice & Public Health at the New York University School of Global Public Health. Dr. Goodman is a biostatistician and research methodologist. Her research interest is on identifying the origins of health inequities and developing, as necessary, evidence-based primary prevention strategies to reduce these health inequities. She received her B.S. summa cum laude in applied mathematics-statistics and economics (double major) from Stony Brook University. She received her M.S. in biostatistics from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and her Ph.D. from the Department of Biostatistics at Harvard University.

Highlighted Work:

• Book: Public Health Research Methods for Partnerships & Practice
• Book: Biostatistics for Clinical & Public Health Research
• Award: Societal Impact Award (Caucus for Women in Statistics)

The Center for Anti-racism, Social Justice & Public Health (CASJPH) was established by the NYU School of Global Public Health. CASJPH is aligned with two key NYU research and education priorities: (1) structural inequality and anti-racism and (2) public health and health equity.

The Center for Anti-racism, Social Justice & Public Health is undertaking a sweeping, multifaceted transdisciplinary effort to build a science base that examines racism as a social determinant of health and analyzes policies and social structures, such as residential segregation, that have created racial inequities in education, healthcare, criminal justice, social services, and other areas that can negatively impact health.

The CASJPH will advance innovative methods (including community/stakeholder engagement and community based participatory research) and statistical techniques to leverage the power of data to better address the myriad of issues impacting the health of people of color and other marginalized populations in support of collaborative action and concrete policy changes.

The CASJPH is dedicated to developing anti-racism & social justice public health research, policies approaches, and model practices. The center will provide tools for improving the scientific rigor with which researchers examine racism as a social determinant of health. It will also develop and evaluate potential solutions to actively address racism and social justice issues in public health and reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with it.

Highlighted Work:

• Program: Quantitative Public Health Data Literacy Training
• Program: Research and Racial Equity (RARE) Summer Internship Program

*Description of CASJPH sourced from the CASJPH website “About Us” page

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.