Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Hammonds, Evelynn M
• Reverby, Susan M

Titel

Toward a Historically Informed Analysis of Racial Health Disparities Since 1619

Ist Teil von

• American journal of public health (1971), 2019-10, Vol.109 (10), p.1348-1349

Ort / Verlag

United States: American Public Health Association

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

PAIS Index

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• There has never been a time in the United States without racial health disparities. Although the term "health disparities" is of recent origin, differential health outcomes between Blacks and Whites have been part of the American landscape for 400 years. The sophistication of the analytic approaches taken by journalists, social scientists, government agencies, or health scholars may differ, as do the objects of study, but the narratives are very much the same.1 The reasons given for such disparities are supposedly either inherent in the Black body or inherent in the inequalities that have shaped the Black experience for centuries. Yet, most studies of health disparities ignore the real historical past or, at best, classify it as a "variable."2 If historical evidence is used at all, it is said to have two contradictory influences: to make change seem impossible or to make change seem inevitable if attention is given to choices made and not made.3 At the same time, race and racism as factors in the production and maintenance of health disparities are grouped into unchanging categories requiring little definition or historical contextualization. A more appropriate and truly historical approach could help us see the past reasons for health disparities and how they link the body and the body politic. With this knowledge, public health practitioners can consider what to do to overcome these historical burdens that affect the life chances of African Americans.