Say-Ah! presents the 2025 Racism and Health Literacy Symposium

A free online series to advance health equity
October 28-30th, 2025
3:30-5pm, ET REGISTER HERE

Program Overview

This three-part symposium examines the way racism and health literacy interact to impact health outcomes and provides real-world solutions to improve health equity.

Session I: Overview and Keynote

Dr. Paris Adkins-Jackson, PhD, MPH, discusses racism and health literacy in the context of research and community health.

Dr. Paris “AJ” Adkins-Jackson is a multidisciplinary community-partnered health equity researcher who investigates how structural racism affects healthy aging in Black, Latinx/a/o, and Pacific Islander communities. Her work examines the impact of policing on well-being and tests restorative programs to improve community health and trust. Dr. AJ is an Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She earned her doctorate at Morgan State University and is on the board of the Society for the Analysis of African American Public Health Issues.

Session II: Anti-Racist Health Literacy in Action

A panel discussion highlighting Anti-Racist Health Literacy Best Practices and strategies to advance health literacy equity.

Session III: Changing the Narrative

Award-winning fiction author Nafissa Thompson-Spires, PhD, MFA, discusses the power of story to transform health.

Dr. Nafissa Thompson-Spires is an award-winning author and Richards Family Assistant Professor at Cornell University, writing with, of, and about people with chronic illness. Her debut collection, Heads of the Colored People (2019), won the PEN Open Book Award, Whiting Award, and LA Times Book Award for First Fiction, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. She earned a PhD in English from Vanderbilt University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Illinois.

Created in 2020 as an online March for Health Equity, more than one thousand stakeholders representing a broad range of institutions, government entities, and community-based organizations from across the United States and Canada, have attended this three-part symposium to address this complex issue.

Racism & Health Literacy Symposium is a part of Say Ah!’s call for a racially just health care system, and an end to the discriminatory health literacy and health communication practices that often leave Patients and Caregivers of Color unseen, unheard and unhealed.

About Say Ah!
Say Ah! is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that educates and empowers people to make positive choices about their health and health care. We do this by providing health literacy education and training for professionals, and workshops and materials for community members. Founded in 2007, we have helped more than 13,000 community members at over 60 host sites; and trained more than 3,000 professionals. For more information, visit us at www.say-ah.org.