Nonprofit partners with Newark Black churches to bridge health disparities.

Choose Healthy Life Choose Healthy Life Executive Director Rev. Kimberly L. Williams speaks during an event held on Sept. 10 addressing health disparities on Capitol Hill. (Photo provided by Choose Healthy Life.) During the COVID-19 pandemic, Debra Fraser-Howze got tired of seeing Black and brown bodies carted off in black bags. COVID-19 deaths were disproportionately affecting Black and brown communities in Newark and other major cities nationwide, she said, in part because the victims suffered from undiagnosed and untreated pre-existing conditions that put them at greater risk of dying from COVID-19. Fraser-Howze knew she needed to do something. So, she did. She founded the nonprofit Choose Healthy Life, based in Pennsylvania, which partnered with the nonprofit Quest for Health Equity and Black churches in cities hardest hit by COVID-19 – Detroit, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., New York and Newark – to give residents access to testing, vaccinations and other services to close health care gaps. “A lot of the reasons why people died at alarming rates within Black and brown communities was due to pre-existing conditions,” said the Rev. Kimberly L. Williams, Choose Healthy Life’s executive director. Mike Prevoznik agreed. “We saw the disproportionate impact that COVID had on underserved populations,...