FEATURE
Audience members participating in the “ privilege walk ” bead exercise during the “ Understanding Privelege ” session at APHL 2022
I think the most important message for public health laboratories is that they have a responsibility to engage their communities to determine where medically underserved populations live , and how they gain access to testing services .”
Ren Salerno , PhD
As this activity revealed , privilege is multifaceted and shaped by a myriad of factors : Some are innate , some chosen , some assigned by others . Some may be earned through effort and others granted through circumstances outside our control . Collectively , those facets shape the prism through which we view the world and through which others view us . But too often , we do not see the privilege that shapes our own prism . And by allowing ourselves to remain unaware , we help perpetuate the social factors that grant us advantages .
“ Privilege really buffers the impact of structural , social and economic barriers and sometimes can remove them entirely ,” said Ren Salerno , PhD , director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) Division of Laboratory Systems ( DLS ). “ Those who receive privilege often overestimate , overlook or doubt the existence of barriers that they ’ ve never encountered . And I think that ’ s why it ’ s really important for all of us in public health , including those who work in public health laboratories , to continually educate ourselves about privileges that we may not even know that we have and to continually expand our perspective and the perspectives of those around us .”
Due to systemic patterns of discrimination and stigma , many of the same factors that confer privilege are also social determinants of health , including race and ethnicity , socioeconomic status , gender identity , geographic region , housing status , employment status and education level . And the social , economic and structural obstacles that lead to poor health outcomes overwhelmingly affect communities that are also medically underserved , including communities of color , people with disabilities , LGBTQ + individuals , women , people who are incarcerated , people who lack stable housing and those who live in rural settings .
Knowing that privilege underlies many of the inequities that reside within the public health system , it is critical to ask what roles public health laboratories and their laboratorians might play in addressing some of these inequities in their workspaces and in the communities they serve . These efforts start with education — in the classroom , in the workspace and as individuals — about how to identify and acknowledge the sources and effects of privilege in public health . With a greater understanding , laboratorians can embrace allyship and start to harness the power of privilege to drive positive change .
Making Privilege Visible
Allowing privilege to remain unspoken perpetuates inequities . For this reason , recognizing and naming sources of privilege are necessary first steps toward addressing them . That starts with exploring how privilege functions within institutions .
“ Privilege is operating even in places where we ’ re doing health equity work ,”
12 LAB MATTERS Summer 2023
PublicHealthLabs @ APHL APHL . org