Hello Health Leads Community, 

With our first newsletter of 2023, we were excited to welcome everyone to the year with high hopes for our collective work dismantling systemic racism that impacts our health. While that hope remains high, like many of you, our team has been devastated by both the shootings in two different communities in California where Chinese and Taiwanese Americans, other AAPI and Latinx community members were killed, and the release of the video of the murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, yet another senseless killing of a Black man. There have been 40 shootings this year, and those are just the ones we know about. We barely have time to catch our breath before the next tragedy occurs. 

We know both racism and gun violence are public health crises. As we take the time at Health Leads to process the latest violence, our commitment to our partners, to all of you, is to continue our work to dismantle racism at every level of our health, health care, and community health systems. We will stay committed to our internal equity journey and share it openly – the good, bad and ugly. And we will stay committed to building this collective movement. 

I’ll also share what I expressed to our team: we need you in the fight. And this is a very long fight. While we can’t create the employment environment for every one of our partners to have space to process the heaviness of our work and the continued violence in our country, we hope you will take the time you need to feel whatever it is you feel and stay in the fight. To undo and repair the deep-seeded racism and racial hierarchy that permeates individuals, institutions and systems in the United States, and heal both the ongoing and secondary traumas from our history and today, we need all of you. This is collective work. This is the work of generations. 

Health Leads history is rooted in sharing resources sourced by our community partners and, with permission, following up to make sure the resource connection was made. We welcome you to share resources you have found helpful in your communities. We would love to learn more about your work on racial justice, gun violence, hate crimes, or mental health and well-being. We’ll share these resources and stories in our digital channels in the weeks ahead. Thank you for all you're doing to stay in this fight with us, especially through the hard days and weeks

Sending love and appreciation,

Alexandra Quinn