SB 00001 Summary

• Declares racism a public health crisis and establishes a Commission on Racial Equity in Public Health to document racial disparities and develop a comprehensive strategic plan to eliminate health inequities across sectors by January 1, 2022.

• Sets a state goal to achieve at least a 70 percent reduction in racial disparities in education, health care, criminal justice, and economic indicators based on measurements determined by the commission.

• Requires state agencies to evaluate and eliminate structural racism in their policies and operations, and mandates hospitals to provide implicit bias training to staff caring for pregnant and postpartum women starting October 1, 2021.

• Establishes multiple working groups and task forces to study gun violence intervention, school-based health center expansion, peer support services, maternal mortality, doulas, and healthcare workforce diversity and recruitment.

• Standardizes demographic data collection for health care and public health purposes, requiring expanded race and ethnicity categories that allow disaggregation and multiple racial identifications effective January 1, 2022.