"For minorities and especially for African Americans, there are huge disparities,” Assistant Health Commissioner Theresa Seagraves told The Columbus Dispatch. “It is unfortunate that here in Ohio we are a state that has some of the best clinical and health services in the nation ... [but] when it comes to health care outcomes, we are consistently rated at the bottom. .... The underlying reason for these really institutionalized and systemic poor health outcomes and disparities does link back to racism."
The resolution explicitly calls out manifestations of racism in housing, employment, education, and criminal justice, which combine to meet "the definition of a public health crisis proposed by Dr. Sandro Galea who notes: 'The problem must affect large numbers of people, it must threaten health over the long-term, and it must require the adoption of large scale solutions.'"