As health equity advocates work to address the inequalities laid bare by COVID-19, new community-driven initiatives around the country are bringing a racial and social justice approach to mental health and crisis intervention.

With significant work by racial and social justice advocates, the toll of the pandemic has become part of a call to address the ways that the structural problems in society we know so well—wealth inequality, broken education systems, gender and racial discrimination and more—lead to large disparities in public health.