Racial bias bleeds into all aspects of the life of a Black American. To address the discrimination and help change the way the Black community is treated, we must be aware of the disparities they experience. Sadly, this includes our health care. There is a big racial gap in health care that has ultimately led to mistrust between health care workers and the Black community.
Due to this health inequality, African Americans are suffering from diseases at higher rates than white people, which can affect their quality of life. Black individuals are at higher risk for high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, lower life expectancy, mental health problems and lower vaccination rates. African Americans ages 18-49 are twice as likely as white people to die from heart diseases, and those ages 35-64 are 50% more likely to have high blood pressure. These health issues can cause additional obstacles that can prevent the Black community from achieving their goals and dreams.
Several factors are responsible for this gap, including socioeconomic status, education, access to health care and insurance, access to transportation and the stress in dealing with discrimination and implicit bias in the health care industry. Racism can lead health care workers into making assumptions, neglecting their patients’ concerns or discriminating against Black patients, which results in a poor quality of care. It is not always an outright demonstration of discrimination, but the rather implicit racial bias that one may have, which can lead to making inaccurate assumptions, such as Black people having a higher pain tolerance. Implicit bias can lead to making mistakes and missing important details in treatment.
Even 23 grand slam winner and professional tennis player Serena Williams has had complications in health care. After giving birth to her daughter, she felt out of breath and asked for a CT scan considering she had a history of blood clots, but her doctors and nurses wouldn’t listen. They disregarded her concerns by claiming she was confused by the pain medication. After Williams relentlessly insisted, a CT scan was done and revealed several blood clots in her lungs.
Health care workers must learn to listen to their patients’ concerns and address them. A patient knows themself best and knows when something does not feel right, just as Serena Williams did. Although this mistake may or may not have been a result of implicit bias, it is worth noting that Black women along with Native American and Alaska Native women over the age of 30 have four to five times higher pregnancy-related deaths per 100,000 live births than white women. This includes areas with a lower pregnancy-related mortality ratio and among women with higher levels of education.
With mistakes and statistics like these, a level of mistrust can be formed between the Black population and the health care industry. Today, many Black Americans are skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccine. The NAACP found that only 14% of Black respondents trusted the safety of the vaccine, and only 18% were getting the vaccine. This vaccine has the potential to save many lives, but the distrust in the health care system is too significant in the lives of Black Americans. A study performed by Dr. Darcell P. Scharff and others found that this mistrust stems from the events of the Tuskegee syphilis study and continues today through present discriminatory events. This has led to a decrease in research participation among African Americans.
If you aren’t familiar with the Tuskegee syphilis study, it was a research project done on Black men looking to explore a treatment program for syphilis. This study, however, failed to receive informed consent from the participants and misled them into thinking they were getting treatment for syphilis, but they never received proper treatment or a cure. Participants were not informed of the purpose of the study, were never given the option to quit and were never offered penicillin after it was widely distributed as a treatment for syphilis. This level of mistrust must be addressed and fixed to increase participation in research projects. Diverse participation in research is critical so that the world can learn how specific treatments affect different populations, which can lead to a better idea of what works and what doesn’t work for different communities. What may work for a white male may not work for a Black woman. Today there are many laws and regulations set into place to avoid another horrific incident that happened in the Tuskegee study. Researchers are required to gain informed consent for participants, and they must give participants the option to quit the study if they want to.
To close this gap in health care, gain back the trust of Black individuals and help decrease the disproportionate risks and overall burden on Black Americans, these disparities must be addressed. Initiatives need to be put into place to reduce implicit bias and increase the quality of care for non-white communities. As a society, we need to address and understand any racial discrimination in our daily lives to learn to change these attitudes. In the health care system, staff must be educated in reducing and eliminating implicit bias and correctly identify diseases in both Black and white populations. More diversity must be introduced into health care to bring awareness of any concerns regarding marginalized communities. Having more diversity may make certain patients more comfortable, welcomed and willing to trust their providers.
Dr. Ryan Huetro found evidence that patients and providers “who share the same race or ethnicity[…]improves time spent together, medication adherence, shared decision-making, wait times for treatment, cholesterol screening, patient understanding of cancer risk, and patient perceptions of treatment decision,” as well as decreases implicit bias. This goes to show the positive impact that diversity can introduce into the health care system. By increasing Black providers, these communities will feel more comfortable, which can lead to an increase in their trust in health care.
Overall, we must recognize the burden added to the lives of Black Americans due to racial bias both in and out of the health care system. This isn’t a Black issue, but rather a societal issue against which we must all act to fight against.