health disparity
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Say Her Name: Dr. Susan Moore and Medical Apartheid
On December 20th, Michigan-based family medicine physician Dr. Susan Moore died due to complications from COVID-19. Less than two weeks before her death, Moore shared her experience with racism at the Indiana hospital where she was being treated, showing yet another example of anti-Blackness and medical apartheid. In the words of Moore: “You have to…
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Rate of Black Children Who Have Received Flu Shots Is Down 10 Percent From Last Year
While the number of people who have received flu shots this year has seen an overall increase, new data has shown that when it comes to Black children that number has actually gone down. According to NBC News, a report released on Wednesday has officials at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention somewhat alarmed.…
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Black Doctors Release Letter Encouraging Black Families to Take COVID-19 Vaccine When It’s Safe, Avoid Gatherings During the Holidays
Last week, when discussing my hopes and goals for the next year with my mom, the necessity of a vaccine obviously came up. “Uh, I’m not taking it at first, and neither are you,” she told me. “We’re going to let them take it and see what happens”— “them” obviously meaning white folks. This attitude…
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Pittsburgh Medical Students Rewrite Hippocratic Oath to Recognize Systemic Racism, COVID-19 and Police Violence
We’ve all heard the calls to declare racism a public health crisis. Well, a group of medical students in Pittsburgh, Pa., have taken things a step further and rewritten the Hippocratic Oath to include acknowledgments of racism, the pandemic and victims of police violence and racial violence. CNN reports that the group of class of…
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During COVID-19, Black Women Are Still Dying From Not Being Taken Seriously
About a year ago I made up my mind to never give birth to a child in the United States. The decision came after I stumbled into an urgent care clinic in the Chicago neighborhood I lived in, after hours of lying on the couch in my apartment feeling weak and severely dehydrated yet unable…
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Black Woman Dies From Coronavirus After Being Turned Away 4 Times From Hospital She Worked at for Decades
The disproportionate number of black people who are dying from the coronavirus disease continues to grow. Deborah Gatewood, a 63-year-old healthcare worker who lived and worked in Michigan, died earlier this month from COVID-19 complications. Her daughter is now speaking out about what she describes as the “disheartening” treatment—or lack thereof—her mother got from the…
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The 'Urban' Legend of COVID-19: SC Data Shows Coronavirus Also Ravages Rural Black Communities
Newly released data on COVID-19 infections and deaths in South Carolina reveals that the global pandemic seems to be disproportionately targeting the state’s rural black residents in the same way it has targeted non-white people in more populous states. The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) meticulously compiled the state’s COVID-19 numbers,…
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New York City to Release Data Showing Racial Disparities in Coronavirus Impact
As COVID-19 continues to spread across the United States, there have been more and more calls for data to be released detailing the racial disparity in cases and care. In New York City, that data will hopefully be released sooner rather than later. NBC News reports that on Tuesday New York City Mayor Bill de…
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Coronavirus Is Exposing America's Separate but Unequal Healthcare System. But Will It Change It?
As the child of Jamaican immigrants, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to trek across New York City to attend one of the most exclusive high schools in the country (Stuyvesant High School), and one of the country’s best historically black colleges (Hampton University). After serving as an Air Force physician, I intentionally…
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Obamacare at 10: Study Shows Gaps in Coverage Between Racial Lines Have Narrowed but Persist
It’s hard to believe that it’s been 10 years since the Affordable Care Act was officially signed. In the time we’ve seen the Avengers catch Thanos’ hands, Thanos catch the Avengers’ hands and Lex Luthor actually became president of the United States. While the last decade has increased access to healthcare coverage, there is still…