The event was organized and moderated by UvA Anthropologist Alana Helberg-Proctor, and started with an inspiring presentation by Dr. Layal Liverpool followed by an engaging panel discussion with Kim Sigmund (PhD Candidate, UvA Anthropologist), Dr. Saskia Duijs (Assistant Professor, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and audience members. The dynamic audience consisted of social science scholars, doctors, nurses, researchers other health professionals, and UvA students. As of next year, Dr. Liverpool’s book will be used in various courses in the BA and MA’s in Anthropology and the Research Master Social Sciences (RMSS). 

About the book

What can you do when science and medicine are as biased as the society they treat? Black and Asian patients in the UK wait nearly a week longer for a cancer diagnosis and globally, people of colour are not only more likely to die while giving birth, they are also more likely to die while being born – or soon afterwards.

In Systemic, science journalist Layal Liverpool unearths the shocking facts behind the health threat of racism, and when a scientific bias is this pronounced, it results in worse treatment for everyone. We are collectively more ill, medical research is held back and our potential for scientific discoveries is reduced.

But there is hope for a cure – practical solutions that we can implement to heal our world. Individuals can learn to advocate for themselves and others with scientifically backed data in the face of structural prejudice. Governments can enact policies aimed at tackling systemic inequities on a national level. Drawing on years of research, interviews and cutting-edge data from across the world, Systemic is a clarion call for a healthier world for us all.

About the author

Dr. Layal Liverpool is a British science journalist and author based in Berlin, Germany. Her writing has appeared in Nature, New Scientist, WIRED, The Guardian, and elsewhere, and she has worked as a Berlin-based reporter for both Nature and New Scientist. Before moving into journalism, Layal worked as a biomedical researcher at University College London and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. She has a PhD in virology and immunology from the University of Oxford. Layal was born and grew up mainly in The Hague, in the Netherlands.