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Awareness
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The world’s attention to health, wellness, and medical care has grown significantly over the past few years, because of the unprecedented events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the impact of the pandemic disproportionately impacted Black Americans revealing a dark secret of healthcare inequity in America. Healthcare inequities such as access to quality healthcare was attributed to Black Americans’ increased likelihood of death or life-threatening health concerns from COVID-19 exposure. (Fortuna Tolou-Shams, Robles-Ramamurthy, and Porche, 2020). The lack of quality healthcare among Black Americans is not the result of uneducated or inexperience healthcare providers servicing the community. It includes a deeper-rooted issue of racism and oppression in the healthcare field.
Black Americans are more likely to be underdiagnosis, overdiagnosis, or misdiagnosed because of culturally insensitive assessment practices and diagnostic criteria (Black Parker, McCall, Spearman-McCarthy, Rosenquist, and Cortese, 2021). Black Americans report being unheard, unseen, and rejected by their healthcare providers. Black women are more likely to die during childbirth than any other racial group. Expectant Black mothers who voice concerns regarding their maternal treatment are often discounted by their providers with deadly consequences (Hardeman, et.al., 2022). Black youth suicide attempts have increased by 73% over the past 20 years. Despite this fact, healthcare focus on understanding the underlying causes and outcome shortcomings remains under studied (Elisha and Collins, 2022).
Healthcare has a long history of racism and inhumane treatment of Black Americans. Many current medical procedures are the result of studies conducted on Black Americans using grossly unethical research practices (Jaiswal, 2019). The Tuskegee Syphilis Study is a well-known example of the inhumane treatment of Black American men for the purpose of healthcare research and practice outcomes. Another example is the disturbing unethical practices of J. Marion Sims, who performed experiments on Black slave women for the purpose of developing modern vaginal surgery practices (May, 2019).
The COVID-19 pandemic brought long overdue attention to the healthcare inequities in the Black community, although lawmakers and healthcare organizations have made steps to address these inequities. There are over 200 years’ worth of oppressive and racist healthcare systems and policies to dismantle. Our part in continuing to dismantle these healthcare inequities is simple, educate ourselves, believe the reported lived healthcare experiences of Black Americans, and speak up against these inequities in healthcare.
Written by: Jennifer P. Edwards, LPCMH
Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Manager
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