Note from the Editor
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Note from the Editor
The history of African Americans, and of people around the world whose ancestry lies in Africa, has established a paradigm of what it means to be literally underserved, and somewhat more figuratively, under-SEEN by dominant social groups and institutions. As Black History Month begins, we have the opportunity to bring the concerns of underserved populations to the surface of society’s ongoing discourse about health. These multi-faceted, variably changing, and deeply challenging concerns usually attract little media attention. We hope this issue and the accompanying supplement will both bring into the light some of the many faces of people whose health and well-being are served too little, if at all. We hope that they will contribute to their lives, their stories, their voices, and their rights swelling up like groundwater to produce a mighty spring.
The regular issue for February is organized into four parts:
Part 1: Health Profession Education
Part 2: Cancer
Part 3: HIV, Behavioral Health, Sickle Cell Disease, End-of-Life Care
Part 4: Safety-Net Facilities
Each section includes material on African American and other U.S. populations, but many also include material from the continent of Africa itself (and on populations there) as well as underserved populations from other countries in the African Diaspora.
Our supplement, which grew out of the first International Indigenous Oral Health Conference held in Adelaide, Australia, in August 2014, is one of which we are especially proud. The Guest Editor, Professor Lisa Jamieson of the University of Adelaide, is a brilliant, tireless, and positive force for good in the lives of dispossessed Indigenous people around the globe. The literature in medicine and public health on these populations is so scanty that to undertake the conference was itself a major step forward. To go on to gather a solid collection of papers on the oral health of Indigenous peoples in places as far from one another as South Australia, Sri Lanka, Brazil, and Alaska is truly remarkable and makes a lasting contribution to the betterment of that health. It will make the important issues addressed much more visible to the rest of the world. [End Page ix]
