“There’s no way you can extricate what’s been going on and the outcomes of the disease from the basic racism and social injustice and inequities that have existed in this country for so many years” Catherine Alicia Georges, EdD, RN, FAAN, tells Mike Ellison, a host of AARP Take on Today.

In a 15-minute podcast episode, Georges, an American Academy of Nursing Living Legend and the outgoing national volunteer president of AARP’s board of directors, discusses health disparities and racial injustice — how they’re related, why African Americans are disproportionately affected, and how communities can help.

“We’ve always talked about social injustices in nursing,” Georges says. “Nursing has never shied away from it. The problem is our voices were not heard as loudly as I think we should’ve been heard, but now I think people are going to listen to us.”

When Ellison commented that the public doesn’t usually hear the nursing perspective, Georges clarified that the nurses’ voice is definitely out there, and that AARP, through its Center to Champion Nursing in America (CCNA), and a recent article in AARP’s Bulletin, “Nurses Fight Coronavirus on the Front Line,” help raise the profile of nurses. CCNA is an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

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