April is National Minority Health Month. Health disparities run so deep in this country, that your zip code is a better predictor of your health than your genetic code. Research has shown that the conditions we face as we live, learn, and work— or what researchers call the social determinants of health— have a lot to do with our health.

Dr. Laurie Zephyrin, Heart of Healthcare Grant Challenge judge and SVP for Advancing Health Equity at the Commonwealth Fund, interviews Dr. Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha from Tuft’s Center for Black Maternal Health & Reproductive Justice. The mission of the CBMHRJ is to foster academic and community-engaged research in support of the center’s goals to conduct maternal health research with a focus on Black maternal health and eliminating inequities.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) Heritage Month. 8.5% of healthcare workers are AAPI, compared to 6.8% of the U.S. population, making the AAPI population overrepresented in the healthcare field. While Americans of Asian and Pacific Island descent have made many contributions to our healthcare system, they are facing increased discrimination at work and in their communities.

In this episode, Dr. Esther Choo discusses the racism faced by AAPI healthcare workers, and what we can do about it.

The United States has a long—and continuing—practice of forcibly sterilizing women of color, taking away their basic human right to become a parent. It’s happening in prisons and immigration detention centers, where doctors are performing unwarranted hysterectomies and bilateral tubal ligation without proper consent. Last year, California announced it would pay out millions of dollars to living survivors of the state’s forced sterilization efforts thanks to today’s guest who co-sponsor the bill. In this episode, Laura Jimenez, Executive Director of California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, discusses the racist, classist, ableist history of forced sterilization and why it’s still happening today.

Born Lenard McKelvey, Charlamagne Tha God is a multimedia mogul, Radio Hall of Fame inductee, bestselling author, and one of the most influential thought leaders in modern culture.

He is the outspoken, well-informed, and charismatic co-host of the radio show. The Breakfast Club, heard by over 4.5 million listeners daily. Charlamagne also hosts Tha God’s Honest Truth, a late night show on Comedy Central co-created with Stephen Colbert, where he takes on social issues and topics permeating politics and culture.

Charlamagne is also the author of The New York Times bestseller Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It and Shook One: Anxiety Playing Tricks on Me, which launched him to become one of the world’s leading voices in the mental health discussion.

With a deeply personal vision to help address the unmet and underserved emotional needs of Black people worldwide, Charlamagne founded the Mental Wealth Alliance (MWA), his forward-thinking foundation created to destigmatize, accelerate, and center state-of-the-art mental health outreach and care across the U.S. while building an unprecedented long-term system of generational support for Black communities.

Health Predictors: Zip Code vs. Genetic Code

Meet Catherine Coleman Flowers, the “Erin Brockovich of Sewage”