Last Updated on March 22, 2024 by BVN
Breanna Reeves
Sonoma County joined more than 30 California city and county governments in declaring racism a public health crisis following a resolution passed by the board of supervisors on March 12.
In a unanimous vote, the board passed the resolution after hearing a presentation from Sonoma County Department of Health Services (DHS) Director Tina Rivera who addressed the difficulties of living in Sonoma County as a Black woman who has experienced discrimination, microaggressions, and physical, mental and emotional harm.
“As a Black woman living — yes, I live in this county — and working in Sonoma County, [it] has been extremely difficult and it’s been extremely difficult to remain here, but yet I have,” Rivera said.
While many jurisdictions passed resolutions to declare racism as a public health crisis between 2020 and 2022, Sonoma County launched a Five-Year Strategic Plan in March 2021 which included a Racial Equity and Social Justice element to establish racial equity across the county’s workforce and services.
Sonoma County’s efforts to address racial equity follow a 2021 data snapshot of the county which found striking inequity among communities of color across the county. According to data from the 2021 Portrait of Sonoma County, Black people have a life expectancy at birth (71 years) that is 10 years shorter than white people in the county (81.6 years).
Additionally, DHS’s Community Health Dashboard breaks down local health data by race/ethnicity where possible and finds “key data points about local inequities.” The data revealed that Black and Hispanic/Latinx children in Sonoma County are roughly 2.5 times more likely to live in poverty than their white counterparts.
This data was presented in an executive summary, submitted by the Department of Health Services to the board of supervisors, and outlined recommended actions to be carried out under the resolution.
“These outcomes are the result of centuries of laws, policies, and systems that disadvantage people of color. They contribute to poorer health outcomes within these communities because they prevent people from gaining access to the programs, services, resources, and opportunities they need to live and thrive,” the executive summary noted.
The resolution calls Sonoma County Board of Supervisors and the County to follow eight listed actions, including adopting a Health Equity Action Plan and Community Health Assessment, advocating and funding efforts to allocate resources to antiracists goals and guarantee consistent collection of disaggregated demographic data.
In her speech to the board, Rivera acknowledged their courage for taking steps to advance equity in the county by creating an Office of Equity, implementing a racial equity pillar and for having difficult conversations. Rivera acknowledged their ability and willingness to have difficult and uncomfortable conversations with her, the only Black female department head.
“I acknowledge the historic and the ongoing harms of systemic racism, and I challenge us today to commit to addressing those harms through community-centered action and accountability,” Rivera said.
Like dozens of resolutions, Sonoma County’s resolution sets out to establish actions to address systemic inequality in the county. Over the course of the pandemic, as city councils and county boards began passing resolutions to declare racism a public health crisis, researchers Alex Reed and Candice Mays of Mapping Black California (MBC), a Black Voice News project that leverages data to support social justice initiatives, developed the Racism as a Public Health Crisis platform.
With support from The Starling Lab for Data Integrity at Stanford University and ESRI, Reed and Mays developed the platform as an accountability tool where resolutions are captured and stored in a secure digital ledger. By doing so, community members and stakeholders can return to the declarations and learn more about actions outlined, and if they were carried out.
“The question for me is not why did it take Sonoma County so long to make this declaration, but how much longer would it have taken if the DHS Director Tina Rivera weren’t Black, able to empathize with other Black residents based on her own experience, and in a position to leverage her role and access to data to advocate for herself and her community?” Mays said.
While Sonoma County may be late in making their declaration, there are dozens of other jurisdictions across the state who have not passed any resolutions. According to Mays, tardiness is not the issue, rather focus should be turned on those jurisdictions who have yet to make similar declarations.
“The longer other jurisdictions wait to get on board, the longer Black residents, and other residents of color, the very residents working, living, and raising families within these communities will be forced to wait and to fight just for the right to live healthy lives, to live good lives,” Mays explained.
While several city councils and local government organizations have passed resolutions throughout the state, Sonoma County is just the 46th county to pass a resolution among California’s 58 counties.