The past 50 years have seen tremendous advances in medicine and corresponding advances in everything from disease control to life expectancy. But Latinos and blacks in Colorado have not enjoyed the same benefits as the state’s white residents, and today the two groups lag behind in one critical measure of health after another. Examining disparities in public health was one of four major parts of an I-News at Rocky Mountain PBS special report entitled “Losing Ground.” The larger project examined six decades worth of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, and the findings were both counterintuitive and dismaying. By some of the most important measures of social progress, black and Latino residents of Colorado have lost ground in comparison to the state’s white residents since the decades surrounding the Civil Rights Movement. An examination of state public health data revealed equally disturbing inequities.
