Black Health Matters

Data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that Black Americans have higher infant mortality rates, higher hypertension rates, and lower life expectancy. And these outcomes are not genetic. Racism is a public health issue in America. How It Started Versus How It’s Going Systemic racism, racism that extends beyond interpersonal engagement between white people and Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) — involves structures, policies, practices, and social norms — that value and devalue people and determine their outcomes, based on their observable genetic characteristics. It goes beyond skin color or hair texture and can include any phenotype deemed inferior within a systemically racist system. In Louisville, like every other city in America, systemic racism is based on a white supremacist worldview. These unfair advantages and unjust disadvantages affect our entire society. Racism negatively affects the mental and physical health of millions of BIPOC people, severely limiting them from living healthy lives. And that ill health affects the health of our entire culture. Mountainous research shows that centuries of systemic racism in the U.S. has had a cascade effect on BIPOC communities. Social determinants of health — the non-medical factors that affect our general...