Volume 9 • 2022 • Issue 5

The Effects of Racism on Oral Health D r. Luisa N. Borrell spent a year as a public health dentist in the Bronx, where she cared for patients at shelters, HIV clinics, substance abuse programs and elementary schools. “I was exposed to every inequity you can imagine,” she says. Unlike in the Dominican Republic, where she grew up, Dr. Borrell noticed that in the Bronx socio-economic status was not the only significant social determinant of health; race and ethnicity tended to affect health even among wealthier people. “Here in the U.S., you can be rich but your race still has a huge impact on what your life is like,” she says. Dr. Luisa N. Borrell, DDS, PhD, is a distinguished professor at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy at the City University of New York. How does psychosocial stress become internalized to cause problems in the body?Howdoessomething like racism affect health? Dr. Borrell’s experience in New York has inspired her as she earned her PhD and in her work as a professor at the City University of NewYork. “I study how race and ethnicity, 23 Issue 5 | 2022 |