Why do families in some racial and ethnic groups face much higher risks of death from COVID-19 than others, and what can be done to save more lives? One year in to the COVID-19 pandemic there are still many uncertainties about the outbreak but one thing is clear: the virus has inflicted an outsized burden of infection, hospitalization, and death on some of the country’s most vulnerable populations. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the age-adjusted rates of COVID-19-related hospitalizations in American Indian, Alaska Native, African American, and Latino people were almost three times higher than in non-Hispanic white people. And people in these same groups were nearly twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as non-Hispanic white people. On March 29, Felicia Collins, HMS Class of 1995, acting assistant secretary for health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and a rear admiral in the uniform public health service, will discuss the challenges and opportunities that exist for addressing health inequities as keynote speaker at the 2021 Alvin F. Poussaint, MD Visiting Lecture.