For SheKnows, I wrote a reported piece on the health care disparity for American women of color. Thanks to my sources, I learned some interesting things about the factors that go into low-quality care, including less availability and physician bias.
Just as many health issues affect women more or more severely than men — breast cancer, death from heart attacks and osteoarthritis, to name a few — there are conditions and illnesses that plague women of color more regularly and harshly. These include diabetes, infertility and sickle cell disease. When it comes to pregnancy-related issues, Black mothers are also significantly more likely to experience traumatic births.
While many factors influence this disparity, the most prominent and concerning are the lack of access to and understanding of health care resources. Because they’re less likely to have health insurance, people of color have fewer care options. We spoke to experts to get to the root causes of this systemic problem and what we can do to help fix it.
