Mary T Bassett: more justice, more equity, better health for all

Abstract

Having spent, in her words, “a lifetime working at the intersection of health and social justice”, it seems like a natural choice for Mary Travis Bassett, former director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, USA), to become the new Health Commissioner for the state of New York (USA) from December 2021, an appointment now confirmed by the New York State Senate. In our interview, Bassett was emphatic that one of the most important goals in her new appointment will be to address the health inequities in New York driven by structural racism and economic disparities.