Our Voices, Part 4: COVID revealed health care disparities that were no revelation to many
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed terrible health care inequities in U.S. society, but for many people, they weren’t a revelation. So when Black and Hispanic people began suffering and dying at a much higher rate than their population — for example, the CDC found 34 percent of COVID deaths were among Black people although they account for only 12 percent of the population — researchers like Dr. Anita Fernander were not surprised.
As she told the Herald-Leader one year ago, “Over centuries and decades, I saw how government and social policies have influenced health outcomes among African Americans, and racism is embedded in all of that.”
Fernander founded the Lexington-Fayette County Health Disparities Coalition before COVID began to explore some other appalling statistics, like the maternal mortality rates of Black women, which in Kentucky near 42 percent, compared to 17 percent for white women.
Today, readers will hear first hand of how these health care disparities have affected our communities in the fourth round of Our Voices, the joint project between the Herald Leader, RadioLex, Key NewsJournal and CivicLex to feature marginalized voices during a time of racial reckoning.
Our previous rounds explored housing and gentrification, economic opportunity, and education. In addition, RadioLex will be hosting interviews with some of our authors.
We’re now taking applications for the fifth and last round, “Law Enforcement, Justice and Accountability.” If you are interested in applying, you can download the application and make a submission civiclex.org/our-voices. The project is funded through a grant from the Facebook Journalism Project and the Lenfest Institute. We are also grateful to our partners at the Blue Grass Community Foundation, which hosts the Bluegrass Civic Journalism Fund. To make a contribution to the fund, go to https://bgcf.givingfuel.com/donate-now.
This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 9:06 AM.