Radical Public Health
Introduction
2025 Mission Statement
Radical Public Health (RPH) is an association of students, alumni, faculty, staff, and community members that seeks to address the systemic, underlying causes of local and global public health challenges and to consider more radical solutions. RPH:
- Creates a forum and supportive environment for radical perspectives at UIC, including within the School of Public Health (SPH) community.
- Enhances collaboration and builds solidarity with movements that share our values, including among SPH faculty and staff, other schools within UIC, and community organizations.
- Maintains an egalitarian internal structure that reflects our values.
- Normalizes radical perspectives within learning, research, and practice in the public health community.
Membership is open to all students at the UIC School of Public Health and other UIC students, alumni, faculty, and staff, including undergraduates. Membership is also open to like-minded individuals in other schools, organizations, and groups.
RPH provides an open forum for radical and heterodox perspectives in public health work and its associated disciplines. We provide a network of people who support each other in our intellectual, educational, and professional pursuits. We provide a collective of colleagues, mentors, and friends dedicated to social justice and social change.
Contact Us
Please feel free to contact rph.uic@gmail.com for questions or to be added to the RPH ListServ.
Upcoming Events and Activities
RPH has monthly discussion meetings and special events that are advertised through the RPH email ListServ and RPH Instagram. For more information on upcoming lectures, teach-ins, movie screenings, discussions, and demonstrations, please contact rph.uic@gmail.com.
Epidemics of Injustice
Epidemics of Injustice (EofI) is an annual, RPH-led, interdisciplinary public health course that is available to all University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) students for credit and open to the public, free of charge. Key to its mission of centering marginalized voices, this virtual course features an array of speakers with diverse backgrounds and nontraditional types of knowledge each week and focuses on contemporary course topics that are selected by students and typically under-, mis-, or not-at-all-represented in standard university public health curriculum.
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RPH Statements:
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RPH response to the murder of George Floyd
RPH statement on Anti-Asian Racism and Violence
RPH Leadership
Leadership
President – Marjorie Kersten
Treasurer – Caesar Thompson
Officer – SOR – Venus Obazuaye
Faculty Advisor – Dr. Tiffany Ford
Historical Committee Activity
In previous academic years, RPH has had committees in areas of Abolition, COVID-19, Community Outreach, Social Media, Undergraduate PH Program Curriculum Changes, Palestine as a PH Issue, and Epidemics of Injustice course planning. During the 2025-2026 academic year, RPH has two committees: Fat Liberation and Epidemics of Injustice course planning. See below for the value statements, priorities, and contributing members for each committee.
Fat Liberation Committee
(forthcoming)
2025-2026 Priorities: (forthcoming)
Contributing Members:
- Marjorie Kersten
- Caesar Thompson
- Meg Duero
- Jupiter
- Ni’Shele
- Maggie
Epidemics of Injustice Course Planning Committee
Epidemics of Injustice is a two-credit special topics seminar that was developed through a collaboration between members of Radical Public Health, SPH graduate students, and faculty who were brought together by a sense of urgency to address ongoing threats to democracy, social justice, and the public’s health. The course provides a historical understanding of structural and socioeconomic determinants of health, and points to both modern and historical examples of how we can leverage our work for advocacy. Through guest lecturers and action labs, students also learn from others’ experiences and workshop tangible skills that will prepare them to engage in action and advocacy with others across disciplines and sectors. The course is in its ninth year this upcoming spring 2026 with a theme to be determined. The Epidemics of Injustice planning committee leads the planning stages of the course such as selecting the theme for the course, class topics, contacting speakers, and advertising the course, as well as supporting the instructors in any other way necessary.
2025-2026 Priorities:
- Finalize guest speakers and course schedule for 2026
- Secure “big” speaker for final class of 2026 course
- Maintain regular communications with interested community members through newsletter so course recordings are accessible
- Utilize strategies to make engaging action labs over zoom
- High engagement from students and community members (approx. 100 participants per class)
Contributing members:
- Jeni Hebert-Beirne
- Dolores Castañeda
- Megan Duero
- Caesar Thompson
- Jupiter
- Stephanie Salgado
- Marjorie Kersten
- Nancy Valentin
- Emily Etzkorn