The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation awarded Boston Children’s Hospital, Brown University School of Public Health, Vital Village Networks, and Temple University’s Center for Public Health Law Research a two-year grant to expand and extend their database of U.S. state laws pertinent to structural racism and racial justice.

Racialized health inequities persist in the United States, with Black, Indigenous, and people of color experiencing worse health outcomes compared to their white counterparts. Past and present laws and policies determine the inequitable allocation of health-related social, economic, political, and environmental resources and harms across racialized groups today. Timely and credible research on the health and societal effects of laws can empower public health and community leaders to identify, assess, and implement evidence-based legal changes with the potential to mitigate racialized social, economic, and health inequities. Multi- principal investigators Dr. Madina Agénor of Brown University School of Public Health and Dr. S. Bryn Austin of Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health laid the groundwork for this project by developing a comprehensive state-level legal database of 843 laws in 10 legal domains related to structural racism in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) covering four years from 2010 through 2013.

Now, with the support from RWJF and in collaboration with Co-investigators Dr. Renée Boynton-Jarrett of Boston Medical Center and Vital Village Networks, where she is Founding Director, Lindsay Cloud, Deputy Director of Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University, Dr. Alison Tovar of Brown University School of Public Health, and Dr. Ariel Beccia of Boston Children’s Hospital, the team will expand the database to include U.S. state laws related to food (in)justice and extend the database to cover laws, updated annually, through 2024. In addition, the team will develop an interactive online mapping interface that researchers, advocates, community members, policymakers, and public health practitioners can use to identify laws that help promote or mitigate structural racism in every state to advance their anti-racism and racial justice efforts across the U.S.

“We are delighted to have received support from RWJF to expand our database, which will allow us to make publicly available legal data and interactive online maps documenting past and present state laws related to structural racism and food injustice among communities of color – with the goal of informing future research, policy, and practice that advance racial and food justice,” said Dr. Agénor, Associate Professor in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Center for Health Promotion and Health Equity at Brown University School of Public Health.

Ultimately the goal of this innovative project is to catalyze impactful evidence-based policy and community change toward a future where all people have access to the resources they need to be well.