Welcome to Season 5 of Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

I'm Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, and a former

health commissioner here in Baltimore, Maryland.

Our goal with this podcast is to bring scientific evidence and experience to shed light on critical

health issues. If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health

question at jhhhu.edu. That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes.

Today, it's a special episode of the Public Health On Call book club. I speak to Dr. Lisa Cooper,

a Bloomberg distinguished professor at Johns Hopkins, and the author of a new book entitled, Why Are Health

Disparities Everyone's Problem? In this book, Dr. Cooper tells the story of her own pioneering

career, understanding and addressing health inequities. Let's listen. Dr. Cooper, thanks for joining me in public health on call.

And more importantly, thanks for writing this book, which is called

Why Are Health Disparities Everyone's Problem.

Thanks for having me.

So I want to maybe start with a step back because you are a national leader in the field of health equity.

And your story is truly remarkable.

So, you know, the field has really come along with your career in a way.

And I think it would help people to understand where that career started.

Sure, yeah.

So, I mean, my career, I guess, started here in the

United States when I went to medical school, but really when I think about it, the ideas that have

shaped my career began, you know, in my childhood. So I was born in Liberia, West Africa. My parents were

professionals. My father was a physician there and my parents worked together to establish a

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