The act of lynching played a pivotal role in creating the social and physical environment affecting health outcomes in the U.S. South, according to new findings by USF College of Public Health researchers.

Dr. Laura Kihlström, a cultural and medical anthropologist and USF College of Public Health alumna, and Dr. Russell Kirby, USF Distinguished Professor and Marrell Endowed Chair, also found that counties in the U.S. South with a history of lynching experienced lower socioeconomic markers, lower incomes, lower high school graduation rates and lower overall life expectancy.

“If one of the primary goals of public health is striving for health equity, then a large part of that story is acknowledging the past and what got us here in the first place.”

“In public health, it’s very common to talk about social determinants of health and how conditions impact health outcomes. But really, it’s less common to look at the history of how those determinants came to be. This research shows that oftentimes when we dig deeper into that story, it leads us to the story of race and racism in the United States. If one of the primary goals of public health is striving for health equity, then a large part of that story is acknowledging the past and what got us here in the first place,” Kihlström said. 

Their research, “We carry history within us: Anti-Black racism and the legacy of lynchings on life expectancy in the U.S. South,” has been published in the journal Health and Place.

“If we look at conversations that we’ve been having as a society and as a global society since 2020, we can clearly see that understanding the role that race and racism play in not only the history of the United States but also in contemporary phenomena is crucial information,” Kihlström said. “This project was really taking part in that larger conversation. And we decided to hone in on a particular aspect of this history.”

Using data from the Equal Justice Initiative and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Country Health Rankings, Kihlström and Kirby created a cross-sectional county-level data set from more than 1,000 counties in 12 southern U.S. States.

They found that the average life expectancy for 2019–2020 was 76.1 years, ranging from 68.2 to 90.2 years old. Counties with a substantial history of lynchings reported the lowest life expectancy and counties with no recorded history of lynchings indicated a higher life expectancy.

“I think most Americans have heard of several lynching incidents that happened even after 1950, because there were several very visible events that happened in the 1950s until the mid 1960s as well. But I don’t think most people understand how pervasive it was,” Kirby said.

Dr. Kirby also added that they have shared their findings with several community organizations, particularly in Pinellas County, and are hoping to start workshops and other educational meetings “to get community leaders and concerned citizens more involved in activities aimed at dismantling the fight against systemic racism.”

“There is no health equity without an acknowledgment of the past.

“There is no health equity without an acknowledgment of the past. There’s no health equity unless we have a term for the engagement that got us here. And there’s no health equity without understanding that history matters. That history is in this research. Things we describe as the ‘the distant past’ really matter for health today,” Kihlström said.

Story by Anna Mayor, USF College of Public Health