Subject(s)
Black or African American/history , Physicians , Racism/history , Social Determinants of Health/history , Tuberculosis/history , American Medical Association/history , Health Status Disparities , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , Humans , Philadelphia , Physicians/history , Tuberculosis/ethnology , United States , White People/historyABSTRACT
There have been significant advances in the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders; however, racial disparities continue to create inequity in mental health care. In this commentary, we explore mental health disparities disfavoring African Americans in the psychiatric literature. We discuss how discrimination over time has resulted in a difference of perception, misdiagnoses, and conflicts in patient care. The literature reviewed reveals a pattern wherein African Americans are more likely to be misdiagnosed for all types of mental illness compared with other ethnicities due to fallacies perpetuated throughout the history of African Americans. In addition, the aggregation of current information and research on the current COVID-19 pandemic will justify future research on the epidemic of police brutality and shootings of unarmed African Americans. If we address this issue, we will reduce medical mistrust and ultimately reduce racial health inequities.
Subject(s)
Black or African American , Healthcare Disparities , Mental Disorders/therapy , Racism , COVID-19/ethnology , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , History, 21st Century , Humans , Mental Disorders/ethnology , Practice Patterns, Physicians' , Psychiatry/history , Racism/historySubject(s)
Asian/psychology , Hate , Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander/psychology , Racism/ethnology , Racism/prevention & control , Adolescent , COVID-19/epidemiology , Child , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , History, 21st Century , Humans , Mental Health , Pandemics , Racism/history , SARS-CoV-2 , Social Determinants of Health , United States/epidemiologyABSTRACT
This essay explores how epidemics in the past and present give rise to distinctive, recurring racial scripts about bodies and identities, with sweeping racial effects beyond the Black experience. Using examples from cholera, influenza, tuberculosis, AIDS, and COVID-19, the essay provides a dramaturgical analysis of race and epidemics in four acts, moving from Act I, racial revelation; to Act II, the staging of bodies and places; to Act III, where race and disease is made into spectacle; and finally, Act IV, in which racial boundaries are fixed, repaired, or made anew in the response to the racial dynamics revealed by epidemics. Focusing primarily on North America but touching on global racial narratives, the essay concludes with reflections on the writers and producers of these racialized dramas, and a discussion of why these racialized repertoires have endured.
Subject(s)
Epidemics/history , Ethnicity/psychology , Racial Groups/psychology , Racism/history , Social Class , History, 18th Century , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , HumansABSTRACT
The Flexner Report damaged and marginalized historically Black medical schools, which today produce more than their fair share of Black medical graduates. As physicians, graduates of Black medical schools have confronted head-on the inequities of American responses to COVID-19 that the pandemic has laid bare to the world. Black physicians' leadership roles in American health care and in American communities have informed the reimagination of health care and medical education as just and inclusive.
Subject(s)
Black or African American/education , Racism/history , Research Report , Schools, Medical/history , History, 20th Century , HumansABSTRACT
Anti-Asian discrimination and assaults have increased significantly during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, contributing to a "secondary contagion" of racism. The United States has a long and well-documented history of both interpersonal and structural anti-Asian discrimination, and the current pandemic reinforces longstanding negative stereotypes of this rapidly growing minority group as the "Yellow Peril."We provide a general overview of the history of anti-Asian discrimination in the United States, review theoretical and empirical associations between discrimination and health, and describe the associated public health implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, citing relevant evidence from previous disasters in US history that became racialized.Although the literature suggests that COVID-19 will likely have significant negative effects on the health of Asian Americans and other vulnerable groups, there are reasons for optimism as well. These include the emergence of mechanisms for reporting and tracking incidents of racial bias, increased awareness of racism's insidious harms and subsequent civic and political engagement by the Asian American community, and further research into resilience-promoting factors that can reduce the negative health effects of racism.