Waiting No More

Olaoluwa Omotowa isn’t waiting until he is a physician to address disparities in health care.

In the summer of 2020, Omotowa and other Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine students came together to write a resolution declaring racism as a public health crisis at the University of Utah. The resolution was unanimously passed by both the assembly and senate of the Associated Students of the University of Utah (ASUU).

Since then, public awareness of the issue has accelerated in Utah. In January 2021, the state’s four major health care systems—University of Utah Health, Intermountain Healthcare, MountainStar Healthcare, and Stewart Healthcare— issued a joint statement that systemic racism is a public health crisis.

Later in 2021, a bill by Rep. Sandra Hollins declaring racism a “moral and public health crisis” was brought to the floor of the Utah legislature, and racism was declared a public health crisis by the Salt Lake City Council and Mayor Erin Mendenhall.

“I had zero expectations of the direction that things were going to go,” said Omotowa, a second-year medical student. “Everything that has happened since the resolution, and Dr. Good stating that he was going to allocate funds for the Scholarship (for Underrepresented Populations), has been a pleasant surprise.”

Omotowa is originally from Idaho Falls, Idaho, where his father is a chemist and his mother teaches at Idaho State University.

He graduated from the U in 2015 with a Bachelor of Science in health, society, and policy, his interest in public health having been awakened by a medical anthropology class. Following a summer 2015 internship with the US Department of Health and Human Services, he earned his Master of Public Health with a focus on epidemiology and biostatistics from Boston University.

“Social determinants of health are what’s really pulled me in (to this field of study) and kept me there—especially learning how much somebody’s zip code affects them,” Omotowa said. “It’s as much, if not more, than their genetic code.”

Omotowa returned to Utah in 2020 to attend the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine. His education has been supported by scholarships from the Dr. John C. and Bliss L. Hubbard Foundation Scholarship Fund and the Richard K. and Maria A. Obyn Memorial Scholarship.

“A scholarship is financial security,” he said. “When you already have a million things to stress about, not having to worry about finances makes a tangible difference.”