Vaccine distrust is often rooted in the infamous Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine study linked to autism, along with the distrust surrounding the sped-up of manufacturing and the concerns about side effects. However, these issues, on top of systemic racism, which was brought up via the Black Lives Matter social movement, for Black patients rehashes unhealed wounds that relate to medicine’s discriminatory history.
A poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Undefeated found that around 70% of Black Americans believe that people are mistreated based on race or ethnicity when seeking medical care. Black people also make up 13% of the American population but account for 21% of deaths from COVID-19, and only 3% enroll in vaccine trials. This again raises an alarming concern about barriers to participation and the deep distrust that Black patients have to this day.
These concerns and barriers relate to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, patients being misdiagnosed, not heard, and being discriminated by healthcare providers who may be insensitive to their concerns and not accounting for the social determinants of health. Additionally, Black patients also prefer to have Black physicians tend to their care. Recent cases of Dr. Susan Moore, a Black physician who died at the hands of a racist hospital organization, and Black maternal mortality further shed light on the disparity and poor quality of care that Black patients receive. This further prevents Black patients from seeking help, leads to later diagnoses, and increases distrust with each generation.
Although I am not a Black woman and can never speak on the Black patient experience, I believe that it is my job to educate myself on matters that jeopardize patient care and violate the Hippocratic Oath that physicians have to take. Based on the research that I have done relating to how physicians can make Black patients feel more comfortable and start tackling medicine’s racist history, it is pivotal to involve Black physicians who can directly address these patients.
Research shows that a COVID-prevention message delivered by a Black physician increased information-seeking behavior among Black patients as compared with watching the same message delivered by a non–racially concordant physician. These types of measures can help make more Black patients more open to the idea of getting vaccinated. For now, we must listen, check others when they express an anti-Black sentiment (whether they be friends, family, a teacher, whoever!), and raise our voices, but remember not to talk over other Black patients, peers, friends, and the community as a whole.