Activists, and others, have been asking for reparations for a very long time. It’s not a new conversation, but it’s one that public health hasn’t been very involved in, even though we know there is a strong correlation between higher socioeconomic status and better health outcomes. We wanted to think about the relationships between structural racism and health and what an intervention might look like to close the Black-White wealth gap.

We used a simulation to model reparations payments over ten years. We found that when we made payments totaling about $900,000 to each Black household, these reparations would have reduced premature mortality by about 30 percent for Black adults over the age of 18. We also found a similar relationship for overall mortality, not just those who died before the age of 65. There was an all-cause mortality reduction of about 25 percent in Black adults.

I’d like to see H.R. 40, a bill that would establish a commission to study and develop reparation proposals, actually come to the floor of Congress. It’s been introduced in Congress each year since 1989, but it’s never gone for a vote outside of committee. I feel encouraged, though, that these conversations are happening on a state level in some places, like in California, and in smaller cities and municipalities. Ultimately, I’d like us to spend more time thinking about what reparations might look like.