The Non-Racial Non-Gap
R. Alex Whitlock
Newsweek has this ominous title:
Medicine's Racial Gap - Two new studies find that, when it comes to health care, minorities just don't fare as well as whites

Then you get to the guts of it:
But why should that be, if the overall quality of medical care is improving, as shown in the earlier study? There are many possible reasons. More often than whites, African-Americans find they cannot afford expensive medications, such as cholesterol-lowering statins. Their communities tend to have more limited options for exercising and eating right. Those problems don’t lend themselves to quick fixes. [...]

The findings apparently weren’t due to explicit racism. Everyone in the minority-dominated neighborhoods—white, black, Hispanic and Asian—tended to give their health lower marks. “It relates to the poverty level, the quality of food, the quality of life, the quality of health care,” says Borrell. “In poorer areas, there are fewer green spaces to play in, fewer shops selling fresh fruits and vegetables, more cigarette ads. We’re not blaming the victim. We’re blaming the social structure.”

So... minorities... no wait... people in minority neighborhoods are getting substandard health care... no wait... they're getting the same health care (that was one of the controls of the study).

The issue here is not only not really about minorities, it's not even about health care as we understand it -- it's about self-care. The issue is how capable they are of taking care of themselves and whether society should give them more health care than their wealthier counterparts to compensate for other structural limitations.

But I guess that's not as juice as suggesting that they're getting less.


Posted to Health Matters
 
 

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