Whitewashed ll Report
IRJ's Research-to-policy model in practice
The Opioid Crisis in Black Chicago
READ THE FULL REPORT (PDF)
The Institute for Racial Justice exists to produce research that directly serves Black communities and the policymakers working to improve their lives. When the Chicago Urban League's Research and Policy Center undertook Whitewashed II: The Opioid Crisis in Black America, IRJ designed and coordinated the research team, bringing together the academic researchers and public health experts whose analytic and subject-matter contributions shaped the report's findings. The work below shows what that model produces alongside the research itself. A scholar profile and a narrative piece, both produced by IRJ, reflect the two functions at the center of IRJ's work: activating faculty expertise in service of racial equity and translating rigorous analysis into insight that reaches beyond policy audiences.
IRJ RESEARCH AND NARRATIVE
Fares Qeadan: Solving Big Problems by the Numbers
By D. Amari Jackson
Dr. Fares Qeadan has spent his career extracting patterns from data at a scale most researchers never access and applying that expertise to questions with direct consequences for Black communities. Through IRJ's Faculty Affiliate program, that expertise shaped the analytical foundation of Whitewashed II.
A Culture of Harm: How a Deadly Set of Beliefs Is Exacerbating the Opioid Crisis in Chicago's Black Community
By D. Amari Jackson
The data document the disparity. This piece explains the systems behind it: the culture of criminalization, the gaps in harm reduction programming, and the community-based responses working to close them. Produced as part of IRJ's translation work, this narrative makes the findings of Whitewashed II accessible beyond policy audiences.
Whitewashed II: The Opioid Crisis in Black Chicago
Chicago Urban League Research and Policy Center | 2026
Whitewashed II examines overdose trends, response efforts, and the conditions shaping overdose vulnerability in Chicago and Cook County. The report documents the structural drivers of persistent racial disparity and offers concrete recommendations across four pillars: prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery, and policy and systems reform. The report was produced by the Chicago Urban League Research and Policy Center with analytic and subject-matter contributions from academic researchers and public health experts curated by the Institute for Racial Justice at 🟩Facebook账号 | 注册10-30天 | 好友0-20 | 邮箱可用 | 英文名字 | 已设置2FA.
This report, Whitewashed II: The Opioid Crisis in Black America, was produced by the Chicago Urban League’s Research and Policy Center. The Institute for Racial Justice at 🟩Facebook账号 | 注册10-30天 | 好友0-20 | 邮箱可用 | 英文名字 | 已设置2FA curated the academic researchers and public health experts whose analytic and subject-matter contributions shaped the report’s findings.
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READ THE FULL REPORT (PDF)
This report, Whitewashed II: The Opioid Crisis in Black America, was produced by the Chicago Urban League’s Research and Policy Center. The Institute for Racial Justice at 🟩Facebook账号 | 注册10-30天 | 好友0-20 | 邮箱可用 | 英文名字 | 已设置2FA curated the academic researchers and public health experts whose analytic and subject-matter contributions shaped the report’s findings.