Library Catalog
On the Shelf at CCBC Libraries
Unequal Health by
Racial disparities in health and life expectancy are public health problems that have existed since before the US became a country and affect all American's lives. On average, Black Americans have poorer overall health than White Americans and receive lower quality healthcare. This volume presents research from a broad range of academic disciplines, personal narratives, and historical sources to explain the origins of anti-Black racism and describe specific ways in which it threatens both Black Americans' health and the quality of their medical care. Using their own research and public policy expertise, the authors analyze the critical roles of individual and systemic racial bias in these racial health disparities and their consequence for all Americans. They also identify current viable interventions that can reduce current racial health disparities. Unequal Health is invaluable to professionals who study health disparities and lay people who are concerned about them.
Call Number: RA448.5.B53 P46 2023
Adverse Events by
Explores the social inequality of clinical drug testing and its effects on scientific results Imagine that you volunteer for the clinical trial of an experimental drug. The only direct benefit of participating is that you will receive up to $5,175. You must spend twenty nights literally locked in a research facility. You will be told what to eat, when to eat, and when to sleep. You will share a bedroom with several strangers. Who are you, and why would you choose to take part in this kind of study? This book explores the hidden world of pharmaceutical testing on healthy volunteers. Drawing on two years of fieldwork in clinics across the country and 268 interviews with participants and staff, it illustrates how decisions to take part in such studies are often influenced by poverty and lack of employment opportunities. It shows that healthy participants are typically recruited from African American and Latino/a communities, and that they are often serial participants, who obtain a significant portion of their income from these trials. This book reveals not only how social inequality fundamentally shapes these drug trials, but it also depicts the important validity concerns inherent in this mode of testing new pharmaceuticals. These highly controlled studies bear little resemblance to real-world conditions, and everyone involved is incentivized to game the system, ultimately making new drugs appear safer than they really are. Adverse Events provides an unprecedented view of the intersection of racial inequalities with pharmaceutical testing, signaling the dangers of this research enterprise to both social justice and public health.
Call Number: RM301.27 .F56 2020
Caring for Equality by
African Americans today continue to suffer disproportionately from heart disease, diabetes, and other health problems. In Caring for Equality David McBride chronicles the struggle by African Americans and their white allies to improve poor black health conditions as well as inadequate medical care--caused by slavery, racism, and discrimination--since the arrival of African slaves in America. Black American health progress resulted from the steady influence of what David McBride calls the health equality ideal: the principle that health of black Americans could and should be equal to that of whites and other Americans. Including a timeline, selected primary sources, and an extensive bibliographic essay, McBride's book provides a superb starting point for students and readers who want to explore in greater depth this important and understudied topic in African American history.
Call Number: RA448.5.N4 M385 2018
The Racial Divide in American Medicine by
Contributions by Richard D. deShazo, John Dittmer, Keydron K. Guinn, Lucius M. Lampton, Wilson F. Minor, Rosemary Moak, Sara B. Parker, Wayne J. Riley, Leigh Baldwin Skipworth, Robert Smith, and William F. Winter The Racial Divide in American Medicine documents the struggle for equity in health and health care by African Americans in Mississippi and the United States and the connections between what happened there and the national search for social justice in health care. Dr. Richard D. deShazo and the contributors to the volume trace the dark journey from a system of slave hospitals in the state, through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the civil rights era, to the present day. They substantiate that current health disparities are directly linked to America's history of separation, neglect, struggle, and disparities. Contributors reveal details of individual physicians' journeys for recognition both as African Americans and as professionals in Mississippi. Despite discrimination by their white colleagues and threats of violence, a small but fearless group of African American physicians fought for desegregation of American medicine and society. For example, T. R. M. Howard, MD, in the all-black city of Mound Bayou led a private investigation of the Emmett Till murder that helped trigger the civil rights movement. Later, other black physicians risked their lives and practices to provide care for white civil rights workers during the civil rights movement. DeShazo has assembled an accurate account of the lives and experiences of black physicians in Mississippi, one that gives full credit to the actions of these pioneers. DeShazo's introduction and the essays address ongoing isolation and distrust among black and white colleagues. This book will stimulate dialogue, apology, and reconciliation, with the ultimate goal of improving disparities in health and health care and addressing long-standing injustices in our country.
Call Number: RA563.M56 R334 2018
The Inequality and African-American Health by
This book reveals how living in a highly racialized society affects health through multiple social contexts, including neighborhoods, personal and family relationships, and the medical system. Black-white disparities in health, illness, and mortality have been widely documented, but most research has focused on single factors that produce and perpetuate those disparities, such as individual health behaviors and access to medical care. Inequality and African-American Health is the first book to offer a comprehensive perspective on health and sickness among African Americans. Starting with an examination of how race has been historically constructed in the United States generally and in its medical system specifically, it goes on to explore the resilience of these racial ideologies and practices. Shirley A. Hill shows that racial disparities in health reflect racial inequalities in living conditions, incarceration rates, family systems, and opportunities and that these racial disparities often cut across social class boundaries and have gender-specific consequences. Bringing together data from existing quantitative and qualitative research with new archival and interview research, this book marks a crucial advance in the fields of family studies, race and ethnicity studies, and medical sociology.
Call Number: RA448.5.N4 H55 2016
Health Care Reform and Disparities by
This book exposes and examines how Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance plans combined with widespread business practices and fraud create inequity--the root cause of our dysfunctional health care system, and the reason for the rising cost of health care for all Americans. In Health Care Reform and Disparities: History, Hype, and Hope, prolific author Toni P. Miles, MD, PhD, uniquely expands the usual discussion of health disparities by including and emphasizing the voice and perspective of the consumer, and by featuring policy, media, and financing data. Highlighting the subjective experience humanizes the effects of bureaucratic inequity and inefficiency, while examining the facts and figures spotlights real-world opportunities for moving away from operating on a discrimination basis and refocusing on quality of care. The first chapter outlines the larger historical context of the health care crisis before subsequent sections describe individual aspects of the health care system--and each one's role in creating or exacerbating disparities. Health care issues specific to demographic groups such as young adults are addressed. This work is an accessible, eye-opening resource for educators, students, and policy makers, as well as anyone wanting to find up-to-date details on the policies and regulations evolving from the Affordable Care Act.
Call Number: RA395.A3 M4725 2012
Medical Apartheid by
Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge-a tradition that continues today within some black populations. It reveals how blacks have historically been prey to grave-robbing as well as unauthorized autopsies and dissections. Moving into the twentieth century, it shows how the pseudoscience of eugenics and social Darwinism was used to justify experimental exploitation and shoddy medical treatment of blacks, and the view that they were biologically inferior, oversexed, and unfit for adult responsibilities. Shocking new details about the government's notorious Tuskegee experiment are revealed, as are similar, less-well-known medical atrocities conducted by the government, the armed forces, prisons, and private institutions. The product of years of prodigious research into medical journals and experimental reports long undisturbed, Medical Apartheid reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and makes possible, for the first time, an understanding of the roots of the African American health deficit. At last, it provides the fullest possible context for comprehending the behavioral fallout that has caused black Americans to view researchers-and indeed the whole medical establishment-with such deep distrust. No one concerned with issues of public health and racial justice can afford not to read Medical Apartheid, a masterful book that will stir up both controversy and long-needed debate.
Call Number: R853.H8 W37 2008
Databases
- ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
Articles on any subject. This is a good place to start.
- Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
Viewpoint essays, topic essays, and news and magazine articles on controversial issues. Browse for topics or search.
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Articles on any subject. This is a good place to start.
Health Disparities in Baltimore
- The Atlantic looks at health disparities in Baltimore
Atlantic, June 21, 2018 - Baltimore City Health Disparities Report Card, 2013
from Baltimore City Health Department,
Office of Epidemiologic Services
Streaming Video
- Racial Disparities in Cardiac Care: Second Opinion—Taking Charge of Your Health CareAfrican-American adults are less likely to be diagnosed with coronary heart disease, but are more likely to die from heart disease. Knowing the steps that can be taken by patients, providers and the community to improve the quality of cardiac care for all Americans is critical to an effective health care system. (27 minutes)
Online From CCBC Libraries
Mapping Race by
Researchers commonly ask subjects to self-identify their race from a menu of preestablished options. Yet if race is a multidimensional, multilevel social construction, this has profound methodological implications for the sciences and social sciences. Race must inform how we design large-scale data collection and how scientists utilize race in the context of specific research questions. This landmark collection argues for the recognition of those implications for research and suggests ways in which they may be integrated into future scientific endeavors. It concludes on a prescriptive note, providing an arsenal of multidisciplinary, conceptual, and methodological tools for studying race specifically within the context of health inequalities. Contributors: John A. Garcia, Arline T. Geronimus, Laura E. Gómez, Joseph L. Graves Jr., Janet E. Helms, Derek Kenji Iwamoto, Jonathan Kahn, Jay S. Kaufman, Mai M. Kindaichi, Simon J. Craddock Lee, Nancy López, Ethan H. Mereish, Matthew Miller, Gabriel R. Sanchez, Aliya Saperstein, R. Burciaga Valdez, Vicki D. Ybarra
Publication Date: 2013
Entitled to Nothing by
In Entitled to Nothing, Lisa Sun-Hee Park investigates how the politics of immigration, health care, and welfare are intertwined. Documenting the formal return of the immigrant as a "public charge," or a burden upon the State, the author shows how the concept has been revived as states adopt punitive policies targeting immigrants of color and require them to "pay back" benefits for which they are legally eligible during a time of intense debate regarding welfare reform. Park argues that the notions of "public charge" and "public burden" were reinvigorated in the 1990s to target immigrant women of reproductive age for deportation and as part of a larger project of "disciplining" immigrants. Drawing on nearly 200 interviews with immigrant organizations, government agencies and safety net providers, as well as careful tracking of policies and media coverage, Park provides vivid, first-person accounts of how struggles over the "public charge" doctrine unfolded on the ground, as well as its consequences for the immigrant community. Ultimately, she shows that the concept of "public charge" continues to lurk in the background, structuring our conception of who can legitimately access public programs and of the moral economy of work and citizenship in the U.S., and makes important policy suggestions for reforming our immigration system.
Publication Date: 2011
Eliminating health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities in the United States by
Introduction -- pt. I. Factors contributing to health disparities. Race and racism in nursing research: past, present and future / Cornelia P. Porter and Evelyn Barbee -- Structural and racial barriers to health care / Linda Burnes Bolton, Joyce Newman Giger, and C. Alicia Georges -- Language barriers and access to care / SeonAe Yeo -- pt. II. Special populations. Health disparities among men from racial and ethnic minority populations / Constance Dallas and Linda Burton -- Immigration and health / DeAnne K. Hilfinger Messias and Mercedes Rubio -- Health disparities among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders / Christina Esperat, Jillian Inouye, Elizabeth W. Gonzalez, Donna C. Owen, and Du Feng -- African American and Asian American elders: an ethnogeriatric perspective / Melen R. McBride and Irene D. Lewis -- Part III. Special conditions. Cancer in U.S. ethnic and racial minority populations / Sandra Millon Underwood, Barbara Powe, Mary Canales, Cathy D. Meade, and Eun-Ok Im -- Mental health and disabilities: what we know about racial and ethnic minority children / Mary Lou de Leon Siantz and Bette Rusk Keltner -- Part IV. Intervention approaches for racial and ethnic minority populations. Utilization of complementary and alternative medicine among racial and ethnic minority populations: implications for reducing health disparities / Roxanne Struthers and Lee Anne Nichols -- Community partnerships: the cornerstone of community health research / Carmen J. Portillo and Catherine Waters.
Publication Date: 2004
Government Documents
- Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice; Committee on Community-Based Solutions to Promote Health Equity in the United States; Baciu A, Negussie Y, Geller A, et al., editors.
Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2017 Jan 11.
Other Helpful Guides
Online Articles
- African Americans need more representation in clinical trials
Afro News, March 6, 2022 - Forced Sterilization Is Not a Relic of the Past
Psychology Today, December 17, 2021 - The bias that blinds: why some people get dangerously different medical care
Guardian, September 21, 2021 - Systemic racism drove higher COVID-19 mortality for Black people study says
Detroit News, April 30, 2021 - Coronavirus Update New York City: Black communities finding influence from historical figure over COVID vaccine
WABC New York, February 13, 2021 - COVID-19 vaccines have gone mostly to white Philadelphians. Here’s what the city is doing to change that.
Philadelphia Inquirer, January 11, 2021 - Years of medical abuse make Black Americans less likely to trust the coronavirus vaccine
Washington Post, December 15, 2020 - Wealthy funder pays reparations for use of HeLa cells
Nature, October 29, 2020 - COVID-19 vaccine countdown is a wake-up call. Will Black and brown Americans be left behind?
NBC News, August 14, 2020 - Exclusive: Here's What The CDC Wants Black People To Know About The Coronavirus Vaccine
Essence, August 6, 2020 - A brief history of racism in healthcare
World Economic Forum, July 23, 2020 - Medical Apartheid
from Science Based Medicine, April 9, 2019
