Methamphetamine Deaths Soar, Especially For Blacks, Native Americans

NPR: U.S. Surge In Methamphetamines Hits Black And Native Americans Hard 
When Winnie White Tail convened a new session of inpatient substance use treatment last month for members of the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes, she found that roughly half her clients were struggling with methamphetamine addiction. "It's readily available, it's easy to get," White Tail says. She's a Cheyenne tribal member herself and runs the George Hawkins Memorial Treatment Center in Clinton, Okla. "I believe it's deeply entrenched across the community — not just in Native communities," she tells NPR. (Mann, 9/22)

Louisville Courier Journal: Native Americans Face A Deadly Drug Crisis. How Tapping Into Culture Is Helping Them Heal
A bashful Native American who thwarted death twice summoned his inner warrior during a summer powwow, dressed in purple regalia and long feathers. Jasten "Jazz" Bears Tail, 36, immersed himself in the movement, a style called fancy dancing, at the event in the North Dakota town of Parshall on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. He stomped and twirled in sync with the pounding of the drums, symbolizing the heartbeat of his ancestors. On the periphery, his 11-year-old son, Pistol Bears Tail, proudly watched his father's comeback. Jazz disappeared from competitions a couple of years ago while battling his addiction. (Warren, 9/23)

In other news about health and race —

Wyandotte Daily (Kansas): Doctors Find That Native Americans, Other Countries Take COVID Pandemic Seriously 
Visiting the Navajo Nation in North America with the COVID Care Force, Dr. Morsch, the founder and executive director of the COVID Care Force, said the vaccination rate there reached 75 percent months ago, and it is considered at herd immunity. The COVID Care Force is a group of volunteer doctors, nurses and nonmedical persons who help with vaccinations and health care. The rest of the U.S. is 47th in the world for vaccinations. Dr. Morsch said there is a difference in the way the Native American culture approaches the concept of community good. “It’s not about me and my rights and what I can get by with, but it’s about what can we do to get through this together,” he said. (9/22)

Axios: Minority-Serving Institutions To Help Create Pipeline For More Diverse Public Health Workforce 
Ten minority-serving higher-ed institutions will be awarded about $75 million to recruit and teach Black, Latino, Native American, AAPI and other students of color in public health professions to foster better representation in tackling future public health emergencies, the Biden administration will announce Wednesday. Outdated technology infrastructure and messy data collection during the pandemic fueled misinformation and prevented real-time action for hardest-hit and highest-risk communities. (Fernandez, 9/22)

Essence: A Family Physician Could Be The Key To A Better Doctor-Patient Experience For Black Women
As often as it’s encouraged that people go to the doctor regularly to stay on top of their health, especially those more at risk for certain deadly diseases and conditions, that’s not the easiest thing to make happen. Scheduling conflicts aside, it can be a headache to find the right physician, the kind you can feel comfortable returning to. It’s no secret that a vast number of Black people have had disappointing experiences with the medical system. Mistreatment at the hands of medical professionals is all too common, so much so that it’s a part of this country’s history and been highlighted with the Black maternal health crisis and the current COVID-19 pandemic. That’s why it’s not a surprise that a survey conducted by The Kaiser Family Foundation and publication The Undefeated found that seven out of 10 of African Americans felt the health care system treats people unfairly based on race “very often” or “somewhat often.” Nor is it a shock, though sad, that of those surveyed, 37 percent of Black mothers and 25 percent of Black women in general reported that they were treated unfairly during a doctor’s appointment within the last year because of their race or ethnic background. (Uwumarogie, 9/17)

Stat: How White Scholars Are Colonizing Research On Health Disparities 
Fueled by the massive health disparities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic and the racial reckoning that followed the murder of George Floyd, health equity research is now in vogue. Journals are clamoring for it, the media is covering it, and the National Institutes of Health, after publicly apologizing for giving the field short shrift, recently announced it would unleash nearly $100 million for research on the topic. This would seem to be great news. But a STAT investigation shows a disturbing trend: a gold rush mentality where researchers with little or no background or training in health equity research, often white and already well-funded, are rushing in to scoop up grants and publish papers. STAT has documented dozens of cases where white researchers are building on the work of, or picking the brains of, Black and brown researchers without citing them or offering to include them on grants or as co-authors. (McFarling, 9/23)

The Guardian: The Bias That Blinds: Why Some People Get Dangerously Different Medical Care 
Historically, research about the roots of health disparities – differences in health and disease among different social groups – has sought answers in the patients: their behaviour, their status, their circumstances. Perhaps, the thinking went, some patients wait longer to seek help in the first place, or they don’t comply with doctors’ orders. Maybe patients receive fewer interventions because that’s what they prefer. For Black Americans, health disparities have long been seen as originating in the bodies of the patients, a notion promoted by the racism of the 19th-century medical field. Medical journals published countless articles detailing invented physiological flaws of Black Americans; statistics pointing to increased mortality rates in the late 19th century were seen as evidence not of social and economic oppression and exclusion, but of physical inferiority. (Nordell, 9/21)