Opinion: Pharmacoequity: a new goal for ending disparities in U.S. health care
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought to the public’s attention alarming racial disparities in health. According to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, life expectancy in the U.S. fell in 2020 by 1.5 years, the largest drop since World War II. The drop was far greater for Black and Hispanic Americans, who lost three years in life expectancy over the past year.
As a Black physician-scientist who studies health disparities, I have spent nearly a decade examining the reasons for this gap in life expectancy. The past year has demonstrated how racism is, and always has been, a public health crisis and determinant of physical and psychological health for many Americans. The so-called social determinants of health, including access to healthy food, safe housing, and clean air, have also been highlighted as drivers of health during a pandemic that exposed the well-known racial inequalities in these structural systems.
