Office of the New York City Comptroller: City's first chief equity officer is stepping down

Torian Easterling, who served as the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's first chief equity officer, is stepping down.Easterling, a 40-year-old physician, was appointed in 2020. He led the department's efforts to address racial inequalities in health care during the Covid-19 and monkeypox crises, working to ensure communities of color had access to tests and vaccines."I am extremely proud to have contributed to bend the arc of this important agency's focus toward equity and anti-racism," Easterling said in a statement provided to Bloomberg News. "We face powerful headwinds, but the course we chart is always aimed on promoting equity in work happening every day."Easterling didn't say what he planned to do next.In the summer of 2020, after the police killing of George Floyd sparked protests in New York and across the U.S., the city declared racism a public health crisis. Officials directed the health department to take steps to address "racism as a social determinant of health," including to ensure a "racially just recovery from Covid-19."Shortly after, former Mayor Bill de Blasio and former Commissioner Dave Chokshi created the new chief equity officer role and appointed Easterling to the post in September 2020.At a time when Black and Hispanic New Yorkers were confronting disproportionate sickness and death from Covid, Easterling oversaw outreach to hard-hit neighborhoods that aimed to connect providers and patients with resources like personal protective equipment and emergency food deliveries.During the early days of the vaccine rollout, shots first went into arms of higher-income, White New Yorkers before people of color. A similar pattern played out during this year's introduction of monkeypox shots as equity remains a persistent challenge in New York.'Structural racism'Easterling and his colleagues wrote an April editorial published in Politico urging public health professionals to "do more to combat structural racism."The health officials cited city efforts to reach patients who have been historically underserved by gathering health data from them and a coalition to address inequities in tools used by medical providers to make care decisions.They also highlighted a city-funded expansion in the number of public-health workers to reach marginalized communities and supervised injection sites that opened in New York about a year ago to provide those living with addiction a safe place to use illegal drugs.The prevention centers "don't just save lives; they help interrupt the cycles of illness and inequity fueled by an over-criminalized approach to drug use widely documented in communities of color," Easterling and his colleagues wrote.Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, who was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams to take over the agency in March, said in a statement provided to Bloomberg News that Easterling "has been a steadfast champion for health, equity, and justice" who has had a clear impact on the city."Our city is stronger and healthier for his service, and I'm personally grateful for his leadership and partnership in navigating this phase of Covid-19, monkeypox and a host of intersecting public health challenges," Vasan said.