Hastings Center News
Rachel R. Hardeman Joins Hastings Board
The Hastings Center welcomes Rachel R. Hardeman, PhD, MPH, to its board of directors. She is the Blue Cross Endowed Professor of Health and Racial Equity and the founding director of the Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity (CARHE) at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. She also serves as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A racial health equity researcher, Dr. Hardeman studies a critical and complex determinant of health inequity—racism. Her work contributes to a body of knowledge that links structural racism to health in tangible ways, identifies opportunities for intervention, and dismantles the systems, structures, and institutions that allow inequities to persist.
“Dr. Hardeman is one of the nation’s leading scholars studying the social determinants of health and I look forward to her sharing this expertise with the Center as she joins our board and we seek to better articulate the ethical foundations of health equity and access to care,” says Hastings Center board chair Joseph J. Fins.
Dr. Hardeman leverages the frameworks of critical race theory and reproductive justice to inform her equity-centered work, which aims to build the empirical evidence of racism’s impact on health. Her published work has elicited important conversations on the topics of culturally centered care, police brutality, and structural racism as a fundamental cause of health inequities.
Since founding CARHE in 2021, she has built upon a foundation of authentic community and academic partnerships, deepening her work with reproductive justice and expanding into new areas. CARHE’s research projects encompass maternal and infant health, adolescent and child health, older adult health, innovative measurements of structural racism, economy and labor, and criminal justice. Narrative change is also a core mission at CARHE, and the team actively engages in serving as trusted resources for journalists, policymakers, and community members in Minnesota and across the U.S.
“Rachel Hardeman is an enormously influential health equity researcher and dedicated to public engagement, building community partnerships and working with journalists and policymakers,” says Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky. “Bridging research and public engagement are core to The Hastings Center’s mission. I look forward to working with and learning from her.”
Dr. Hardeman was named one of TIME’s 2024 TIME100 most influential people in the world.