Black Americans Still Suffer Worse Health. Here’s Why There’s So Little Progress.
The U.S. health care system, “by its very design, delivers different outcomes for different populations,” said a June report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Those racial and ethnic inequities “also contribute to millions of premature deaths, resulting in loss of years of life and economic productivity.”
Over a recent two-decade span, mounting research shows, the United States has made almost no progress in eliminating racial disparities in key health indicators, even as political and public health leaders vowed to do so.
And that’s not an accident, according to academic researchers, doctors, politicians, community leaders, and dozens of other people KFF Health News interviewed.
Federal, state, and local governments, they said, have put systems in place that maintain the status quo and leave the well-being of Black people at the mercy of powerful business and political interests.
Across the nation, authorities have permitted nearly 80% of all municipal solid waste incinerators — linked to lung cancer, high blood pressure, higher risk of miscarriages and stillbirths, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma — to be built in Black, Latinx, and low-income communities, according to a complaint filed with the federal government against the state of Florida.
Federal lawmakers slowed investing in public housing as people of color moved in, leaving homes with mold, vermin, and other health hazards.
And Louisiana and other states passed laws allowing the carrying of concealed firearms without a permit even though gun violence is now the No. 1 killer of kids and teens. Research shows Black youth ages 1 to 17 are 18 times as likely to suffer a gun homicide as their white counterparts.
“People are literally dying because of policy decisions in the South,” said Bakari Sellers, a Democratic former state representative in South Carolina.
Beyond health care coverage and provider shortages, Black people “have never been given the conditions needed to thrive,” said Barlow, the George Washington University professor. “And this is because of white supremacy.”
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