From her days growing up in Liberia, through medical training and now heading Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, Dr. Lisa Cooper has tried to understand and explain the ways race and the stress of discrimination shape health care and health outcomes. She’s distilled her work and ideas into a book Why Are Health Disparities Everyone’s Problem?
“Inequality really leads to greater social dysfunction and it’s really because when people live in these different social groups and feel that there’s a constant struggle for survival, that actually leads to more stressors and negative outcomes for everyone.”
Now, Cooper says, she’s eager to translate her health-disparities research to her new appointment to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
