By Dave Davies, Photo: Octavio Jones/Getty Images, National Public Radio, June 14, 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the racial inequities that plague American health care, with Black people dying of the disease at a rate more than double that of white people.
Author Linda Villarosa has been writing about the racial disparities in health outcomes for decades and recently covered the topic for the New York Times' 1619 Project. She says that while she used to think poverty was to blame for Black Americans' health problems, she's now convinced that bias in the health care system and the "weathering" affect of living in a racist society are taking a serious toll on African Americans.
Villarosa points to "weathering" -- a concept developed by public health professor Dr. Arline Geronimus ā as the wear on the body that results from prolonged exposure to stress: "Your heart rate goes up, your cortisol stress levels go up in your body. Your blood pressure rises," she says. "It's not good for the body. But when people are treated badly, that's what happens."
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