CEPH May Drop Racism Language From Public Health Standards
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- CEPH is weighing revisions to its 2024 curriculum competencies that would remove explicit language requiring public health schools to teach about 'structural bias, social inequities, and racism,' with final language not expected until 2027.
- The proposed language has been rewritten twice: first to require students to 'analyze the factors that create disparate health outcomes,' then to 'examine systemic factors that contribute to challenges in achieving optimal population health for a given community or communities.'
- CEPH accredits 68 schools and 190 programs of public health, and its competencies set the baseline for what every accredited institution must teach.
- Laura Rasar King, CEPH's executive director, said the organization aims to 'maintain rigorous standards while ensuring that our criteria are appropriate and workable for accredited schools and programs in the diverse legal and policy environments in which they operate.'
- In July, CEPH withdrew from Education Department recognition, telling Inside Higher Ed the process had 'become increasingly political.'
- Michael Siegel, a Tufts University public health professor, called the change backsliding: 'You can't on the one hand say that you are standing up for racial justice... and then on the other hand just decimate the entire competency so that students in public health aren't required to learn about it.'
- The National Association of Doctors of Public Health has publicly opposed the changes, and a group of academics recently formed the Health and Power Organizing Project to push back against political pressure on the field.
Why it matters: CEPH sets the floor for curricula at 68 accredited schools and 190 programs, so the wording revision effectively decides whether every public health student still encounters explicit instruction on racism's health impact. Some red-state professors argue the national standards actually shield programs from political scrutiny by pointing to a higher authority, meaning stripping 'racism' from the competencies removes that cover and gives state legislators a wedge.
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