Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
HIV trends don’t make headlines the way they used to. But we may see an influx of them in the coming months after news that a court ruling may allow insurance companies to cut back on coverage of preventive care.
Image by Steve Harwood via flickr.
A new analysis of racial disparities in end-of-life care finds that Black patients voluntarily seek substantially more intensive treatment, such as mechanical ventilation, feeding tube insertion, kidney dialysis, CPR and multiple emergency room visits in the last six months of life, while white patients more often choose hospice services.
The study’s researchers say the findings demonstrate the disparities seen in seeking end-of-life care in the U.S., despite an overall increase nationwide toward the use of hospice care regardless of diagnosis, but especially for non-cancer deaths. Continue reading
Andrew Nixon / Capital Public Radio
Often, when a police officer shoots an unarmed black man, news coverage is confined to the echoes of debate over who is right and who is wrong. If journalists fail to advance the story beyond this narrative, they risk becoming unwitting accomplices in numbing the public to these tragedies.
This does a disservice to readers, viewers and listeners who seek better understanding of the full impact of what, in recent years, has become a public health crisis in our nation. Continue reading
Chris Flavelle of Bloomberg View points out an unheralded achievement of the Affordable Care Act: It’s narrowing the race gap in health insurance.
In a recent opinion column summarizing research on insurance disparities and the ACA by Algernon Austin at the Center for Global Policy Solutions, Flavelle wrote: Continue reading
Photo: MEC Toronto Race Four 5K 10K The Summer Classic 2014 via photopin (license)Recent headlines have taken another look at black women and rising breast cancer rates, worsening health among middle-aged whites, and other race-related health issues.
First there was the “dubious milestone,” as The New York Times called it, of black women for the first time facing an equal rate of breast cancer as white women. Then last week, a headline on the sharp uptick in the death rate among middle-class, white Americans, a finding startling enough to merit front-page treatment in The Washington Post.
It’s no secret that there are racial disparities in cancer rates, longevity and other areas, so why the recent headlines? Continue reading
