All posts tagged "Raceandhealth"

O’laysha Davis was a few weeks shy of her due date when in mid-August she decided it was time to switch doctors. Davis had planned to give birth at a small community hospital about 20 minutes from her home in North Charleston, South Carolina. But that changed when her medical team started repeatedly calling her cellphone and pressuring her to come to the hospital and deliver the baby. Davis said she’d told her doctor on more than one occasion that she was opposed to inducing labor early. Eventually, she reached her wits’ end. “It was ridiculous,” said Davis, 33. “I don’t feel heard most of the......

Republicans in Congress are “trying to wipe out federal funding to end the HIV epidemic.” President Joe Biden on Oct. 14, 2023, in remarks at the 2023 Human Rights Campaign National Dinner. Are Republicans threatening to stop spending federal money to end one of the world’s most pressing public health epidemics? That’s what President Joe Biden said during a dinner hosted by an LGBTQ+ advocacy group. “In the United States Congress, extreme MAGA Republicans are trying to undo virtually every bit of progress we’ve made,” Biden said Oct. 14 at the Human Rights Campaign event. “They’re trying to wi......

ELAINE, Ark. — On a recent September afternoon, Courtney Porter counted his losses: his mom from old age, his wife from diabetes complications, two of his brothers. While one died of an aneurysm, the shooting death last year of his younger brother, Patro, hit the hardest. “It tore me up, real bad,” said Porter, 50, from the Stop N Shop, a defunct gas station that is now a convenience shop. “I’ll never get over it.” Patro, who was 46 when he died, was a barber. He had even cut the hair of the man, then 20, who is accused of shooting him after an argument over a cigarette. For this tightknit tow......

Heather Avant always dresses up when she goes to the emergency room. “I’ve been conditioned to act and behave in a very specific way,” said Avant. “I try to do my hair. I make sure I shower, have nice clothes. Sometimes I put on my University of Michigan shirt.” It’s a strategy to combat discrimination the 42-year-old photographer in Mesquite, Texas, has developed over a lifetime of managing her sickle cell disease, a rare blood disorder that affects an estimated 100,000 Americans. The hereditary condition can affect a person of any race or ethnicity, but Black patients, like Avant, make up th......

When I’laysia Vital got accepted to Texas Southern University, a historically Black university in Houston, she immediately began daydreaming about the sense of freedom that would come with living on her own, and the sense of belonging she would feel studying in a thriving Black community. Then, a nurse at her high school’s health clinic in Oakland, California, explained the legal landscape of her new four-year home in Texas — where abortion is now fully banned. Vital watched TikTok videos of protesters harassing women outside clinics in other states. She realized her newfound freedoms would co......

As more than $50 billion makes its way to state and local governments to compensate for the opioid epidemic, people with high hopes for the money are already fighting over a little-known bureaucratic arm of the process: state councils that wield immense power over how the cash is spent. In 14 states, these councils have the ultimate say on the money, which comes from companies that made, distributed, or sold opioid painkillers, including Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, and Walmart. In 24 other states, plus Washington, D.C., the councils establish budget priorities and make recommendations. T......