"It is a form of segregation, to be blunt," said Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute, describing many markets as the tale of two hospitals. "In big cities where there was a lot more diversity, there was a real tendency for some hospitals to cater to primarily wealthier, whiter and more educated patients. That left other hospitals to take care of the poor, less educated and minority patients." More
“If you want to see structural racism, just look at big city hospitals during COVID. Hospitals with a history of serving communities of color needed refrigerator trucks to hold bodies of deceased patients, while wealthier hospitals nearby had empty beds,” said Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute. More
"If you arrived from another planet and saw two airports a mile apart, one for Black people and another for whites, you'd think this is some kind of weird apartheid," Saini told MedPage Today. "We don't do that for airports, but somehow that's where we've ended up with hospitals, and everyone knows it. If you want an illustration of what structural racism is, this is it," he said. "The results are outlandish." More
New rankings identify the most and least racially inclusive U.S. hospitals. Sometimes they are just blocks apart. More
When Douglas McClain contracted COVID-19, his experience with the health care system mirrored that of far too many Black people. More
There's a lot of room for dangerous misunderstanding when doctors and public health officials talk to diverse groups about COVID-19. Health literacy projects aim to dispel confusion in all languages. More
Today, there is more recognition than ever of the influence of structural forces on maternal and infant health and a heightened willingness to address those factors in a meaningful way. We cannot afford to waste this opportunity. More
Black Americans’ vaccination rates still trail all other groups, while Hispanics show improvement. Native Americans show the strongest rates nationally. More
In this issue of JAMA Cardiology, Berman and colleagues examined data from 2 major academic hospitals in Boston, Massachusetts, and found that despite receiving initial care in the same facilities, individuals who lived in poor neighborhoods had strikingly higher cardiovascular mortality after a myocardial infarction than did individuals who lived in more affluent neighborhoods. More
More education typically leads to better health, yet Black men in the U.S. are not getting the same benefit as other groups, research suggests. More
The financial gap between wealthy hospitals and safety-net hospitals, which take everyone who walks through their doors, has widened during the pandemic, an NPR and PBS Frontline investigation found. More
When Dr. Lown came to Baltimore for medical school in 1942, he found that everything was segregated -- even the blood at the hospital's blood bank. Watch the video and read the blog below to hear in Dr. Lown's own words how he rebelled against this racist practice. More
Vaccination rates are significantly lower in communities of color in Massachusetts. The primary reason for this wide gap is that people are still not being met where they are. More
Thousands of retired Black professional football players, their families and supporters are demanding an end to the controversial use of "race-norming" to determine which players are eligible in the NFL's $1 billion settlement of brain injury claims. More
Hispanics who have yet to receive a covid shot are about twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites or Blacks to say they’d like to get vaccinated as soon as possible, according to a survey released Thursday. The findings hint at fixable, though difficult, vaccine access problems for the population. More
This cross-sectional study examines paid parental leave policies for faculty and staff physicians at leading US hospitals and cancer centers. More
The report catalogues many of the ways the AMA has excluded Black, brown, and Native physicians, espoused racism, and harmed people of color. More
Many vulnerable communities lack access to quality care, or face heightened burdens to convince providers that their conditions are real. More
Black women are electing unusual and creative birth plans to ensure their survival, their babies' survival, and the health of their families. More
A recent study looks at how high- and low-income patients access common cancer surgeries in the US, Canada, and Australia. More