She was told she might have cancer: How medicine pathologizes Black patients’ normal test results
A busy medical student, Vanessa Apea wasn’t her usual energetic self. So she dragged herself…
Category: racism
How race became ubiquitous in medical decision-making tools
It was created with the best intentions: a government policy asking researchers to collect racial…
Opinion: When life mirrors research: What a fall on the ice taught me about being Black and in pain
As I hurried to an important meeting about my Ph.D. dissertation one day in 2015,…
Sonya Massey’s death: How to prevent more killings of defenseless Black women
On July 6, 2024, Sonya Massey, 36, called 911 to report a potential home intruder…
Opinion: Listen: Why is eugenics still alive and well in scientific publishing?
While the bogus science of eugenics — the idea that the human race can be…
National Academies proposes reimagining health care to fix ‘fundamental flaws’ that underlie inequity
The nation’s longstanding racial and ethnic health inequities will not improve unless Congress steps in…
Coalition wages campaign for retractions of Richard Lynn’s racist journal articles
A coalition of researchers, historians, and journalists is urging that major scientific publishers, including Elsevier…
Opinion: Journals that published Richard Lynn’s racist ‘research’ articles should retract them
In 2012, the Elsevier journal Personality and Individual Differences published a special issue that included…
How a Baltimore neuroscience study is rewriting Black America’s relationship with medical research
Priscilla Agnew-Hines will never be able to forget that day in early 2020. On March…
Opinion: It’s been 60 years since Freedom Summer, yet the fight for affordable, compassionate, and equitable health care is still going on
Sixty years ago this month, a courageous initiative created by civil rights activists and physicians…
Four Tops singer’s lawsuit says he visited ER for chest pain, ended up in straightjacket
When Alexander Morris, a member of the Motown group The Four Tops, visited a Detroit-area…
Black women founders offer health tech solutions to combat Black maternal mortality
When Black people receive maternal care, they are often not treated the same as white…
Opinion: Practicing medicine at a predominantly Black institution gave me the gift I didn’t realize I needed
“You have a big voice, Dr. Grubbs,” the clinic manager said. I flinched. The last…
The harms of adverse childhood experiences are well-known. But positive experiences can affect future health, too
I was recently working with a young mother who struggled with depression and anxiety in…
Q&A: AMA’s chief health equity officer on ridding medicine of racial essentialism
In the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter…
Opinion: The emergency room is where the United States’ social problems come home to roost
From “Legacy” by Uché Blackstock, M.D., published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group,…
As she drives research on structural racism in health care, Rachel Hardeman faces a painful reckoning
MINNEAPOLIS — It’s been almost four years since George Floyd was murdered here at 38th…
Opinion: Racism infects neuroscience’s past and present. What about its future?
De-Shaine Murray is working at the cutting edge of neurotechnology. As a postdoctoral fellow at…
New England Journal of Medicine reckons with its racist past and complicity in slavery
The New England Journal of Medicine, the world’s oldest continually published medical journal, publicly reckoned…
Progress in childhood cancer has stalled for Blacks and Hispanics, report says
Advances in childhood cancer are a success story in modern medicine. But in the past decade, those…
How pharmacy deserts are putting the health of Black and Latino Americans at risk
Pharmacies were once abundant in the South Side of Chicago. Now, residents living in the…
Health disparities drive everything from school absenteeism to loneliness, say experts
When Jason Farley was growing up in rural Alabama as a young gay man, he…
What will it take to end the crisis of Black deaths in the U.S.?
In the last two decades, Black Americans have suffered 1.63 million excess deaths compared to…
Black people are more likely to be physically restrained in emergency rooms, study finds
In the chaotic environment of an emergency room, hospital staffers sometimes face the question of…
Why doesn’t the U.S. have more Black midwives?
In the wake of growing alarm over the disproportionately high rates of maternal mortality in…
With affirmative action off the table, medical schools plan new diversity tactics
“Lots of scrambling on the ground.” That’s how Consuelo Wilkins, the senior associate dean for…
Listen: Housing is health care
Long Island is in the midst of a housing crisis. Just like in many other…
Medical illustrations neglect people with dark skin. A Nigerian doctor-to-be is working to change that
Medical illustration is both an art and a science. But it can have a huge…
Listen: How Long Island became the ‘eugenics capital of the world’
The study of eugenics wasn’t born on Long Island — it’s closer to say it…
Henrietta Lacks settlement hailed by experts as step toward correcting medicine’s racist history
For what would have been Henrietta Lacks’s 103th birthday, her family got her some justice:…
Listen: Why Covid-19 wasn’t the ‘great equalizer’
When the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020, some experts assumed the virus would affect everyone…
Ending health disparities requires full federal government, National Academies panel says
To narrow the nation’s deeply entrenched health disparities, a permanent entity with regulatory powers should…
Living in a historically redlined area linked to worse heart health, study finds
In the 1930s, the U.S. government introduced the practice of redlining — categorizing neighborhoods based…
Ending racial health disparities hinges on penalties, political will, experts say
The nation’s widespread racial health disparities won’t be erased without changes to how health care…
Black Americans living in disadvantaged neighborhoods age faster than white peers, study finds
Black Americans who live in neighborhoods with lower levels of income and education may age…
Opinion: Pregnancy-related death, like Tori Bowie’s, is a far too common occurrence among Black women
The horror stories of Black women dying or coming close to death in childbirth never…
Listen: ‘Food apartheid’ starves minority neighborhoods on Long Island
James Boone wakes up at 6 a.m. nearly every Sunday, driving his van to Trader…
Black former NFL players more burdened by chronic pain than white counterparts, study finds
It’s to be expected, says two-time Pro Bowler Julius Thomas, that “colliding into other people…
Listen: For Long Island mothers, community efforts address ‘an injustice made purposefully invisible’
In the third episode of “Color Code,” we take a look at efforts on Long…
Black men were likely underdiagnosed with lung problems because of bias in software, study suggests
NEW YORK (AP) — Racial bias built into a common medical test for lung function…
‘A target on my back’: New survey shows racism is a huge problem in nursing
A family nurse practitioner in New York City, Jose M. Maria has come to expect…
‘A textbook case of environmental racism’: The battle over the Brookhaven Landfill
The area of North Bellport on Long Island sits in the shadows of a massive…
Listen: Welcome to Long Island: segregation and suburban health
For season 2 of “Color Code,” we’re zooming into the birthplace of American suburbs and…
California medical school apologizes for unethical prisoner experiments
SAN FRANCISCO — A prominent California medical school has apologized for conducting dozens of unethical…
‘One needs to feel safe’: Racism can put sleep — and its health benefits — out of reach
Lots of people struggle to get enough sleep — and the responsibility for fixing the…
Ballerina, firefighter, hygienist? Why dentistry needs to start its pipeline with young kids
Dentistry has a diversity problem, and medical and dental experts say the best way to…
‘I question what I know’: Top cancer specialist Otis Brawley on valuing orthodoxy in medicine
Oncologist Otis Brawley has dedicated his career to advocating for orthodoxy in medicine. Now, he…
One-third of U.S. labs have stopped using race-based equations to diagnose kidney disease
Even as a child, La’Tonzia Adams was interested in diagnosing disease. One day, when she…
Why doesn’t the U.S. have more Black doctors?
When LaShyra “Lash” Nolen was learning about how to recognize signs of Lyme disease in…
Brains of Black Americans age faster, study finds, with racial stressors a likely factor
The brains of Black adults in the U.S. age more quickly than those of white…