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Local governments around the country are declaring racism a public health crisis. That could be lip service, or it might lead to shifting resources from policing to health care, housing and other services, experts say.
In communities of color, the decision to participate in this moment of collective trauma — whether by watching and sharing the video of George Floyd’s death, discussing racial injustice on social media, or protesting and speaking out in the 3D world — can be one rife with anxiety and profound mental distress.
Kaiser Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
KHN Midwest correspondent Cara Anthony spoke with “The 21st” host Brian Mackey about the implications of reopening the U.S. and recent protests.
Darnell Hill, a mental health caseworker, is teaching black teens in St. Louis how to safely walk through the park, run to the store or handle an encounter with the police. Beyond tangible skills, he offers comfort and a semblance of control to those for whom birding, running or walking down the street hold the risk of racial violence.
Health clinics in isolated African American communities in the San Francisco Bay Area provide crucial services to neglected populations. But like thousands of other community clinics around the nation, their finances have been wrecked by the pandemic shutdown.
The federal government’s relief package left behind many of America’s poorest workers struggling to make ends meet as the coronavirus ravaged and unemployment rose. Baltimore’s “squeegee boys” are among them.
Experts estimate local and state health departments will have to hire 100,000 to 300,000 people as contact tracers to get the economy back on track. Many states are trying hard to hire from the racial and ethnic minority communities hit hardest by the virus.
As a journalist, she wrote during the winter about the hostility shown toward Asian Americans for wearing masks. In May, she got cursed at for not wearing a mask herself.
The overall crime rate has dropped during the pandemic, but unfortunately gun violence has not. In St. Louis, at least 11 children have been killed by gunfire so far this year. Living in neighborhoods with frequent violence has forced some families to improvise ways to keep their children safe, even in the place they are supposed to be most secure: their home. The stress of growing up in these conditions could lead to chronic health problems into adulthood.
The novel coronavirus is affecting black Americans disproportionately, which some community leaders and public health experts say is not surprising. So why didn’t anyone sound an alarm?
Federal officials have known for nearly a decade which counties are most likely to suffer devastation ― both in loss of lives and jobs ― in a pandemic.
Twins Edna Mayes and Ethel Sylvester, 92, are relying on each other through the pandemic, in which one of the hidden dangers is to their mental health.
Foot traffic in L.A. has fallen off a cliff amid the COVID-19 crisis, driving many street vendors away. But some are still on the streets, peddling their wares out of economic necessity. Many are undocumented immigrants who won’t get any help from the recently approved $2 trillion federal assistance package.
Many health officials around the nation have not released data on the ethnic and racial demographics of people tested for the new coronavirus. But public health experts said the anecdotes are adding up, and they fear the response to the pandemic will result in predictable health care disparities.
Baltimore barber Antoine Dow helps bring dignity to young black men whose lives were cut short by gun violence.
In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, school districts, especially those with large Chinese student populations, are in uncharted territory as they apply new federal travel rules to their students. Some also are weighing requests from parents that are more about fear than science, such as whether to allow students with no travel history to stay home from school.
Since two cases of the mysterious new coronavirus were reported in Southern California, Chinese immigrants have begun donning face masks. The practice is common in China but goes against official guidance in the U.S., and that’s causing conflict in local schools.
Cultural barriers may keep some African American women from seeking treatment for postpartum depression as early as they need it, and the standard screening tools aren’t always relevant for some black women.
A Sacramento woman is in a coma after using a face cream from Mexico. It is the nation’s first case of methylmercury poisoning from a cosmetic, and public health officials can do almost nothing to prevent other contaminated cosmetics from hitting the shelves.
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