Decades of Documented Health Care Disparities Have Not Brought About Policy Changes

It’s a rare week when we don’t see the release of a new study showing how health care lags for African Americans:

“When it comes to your risk of stroke, you get a penalty for being African American, you get a penalty for living in the South, and you get an ‘extra’ penalty for being an African American living in the South,” George Howard, professor and chair of the biostatistics department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told the conference.

Report after report from state and federal agencies, think tanks, non-profits, and universities have highlighted racial disparities not only as they apply to health care access but also in other areas like wages, home ownership, and education. UCLA’s Network for Multicultural Research on Health and Healthcare is the latest in a long line of programs created to study racial health care disparities. The UCLA group will also “mentor and develop a new generation of researchers with an expertise in health care disparities,” according to the announcement.