‘Systemic racism’ responsible for 80% of Black community’s health issues, doctor argues

Systemic racism and the “legacy of slavery” could be responsible for up to 80% of Black people’s health issues, a doctor argued on MSNBC  Saturday. Dr. Uché Blackstock, author of the book “Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine,” discussed a recent study from Dr. L. Ebony Boulware that analyzed the “strong link between racism and chronic poor health conditions for Black and Brown communities in America.” Bouncing off Boulware’s study, Blackstock advised moving away from the suggestion that individual choices are behind medical issues. “I think so often we think about health as individual choices that patients make. And instead, we really need to understand how practices and policies, you know, the legacy of slavery, the legacy of Jim Crow, current-day systemic racism impacts the health of our communities,” Blackstock said on MSNBC’s “Velshi.” A doctor argued on MSNBC that systemic racism contributed to 80% of the health issues within the Black community. (iStock) She later added, “[I]ndividuals are only responsible for about 20% of what makes them healthy. The other 80% are these systemic factors that Dr. Boulware and her colleagues studied in this very, very important research that needs to inform how, you know, communities...