A time for us to re-learn and re-discover our history.
A history beyond the chapter on Civil Rightsin our high school textbooks.
A history beyond the Emancipation Proclamation and Brown v. Board of Education.
So what are you reading this month?
2/ The ship grew larger & more terrifying w. each stroke of the paddle. The smells grew stronger, the sounds louder, crying & wailing from one quarter, low singing from another; the anarchic noise of children given an underbeat by hands drumming on wood.”
“Locked out of the greatest opportunity for wealth accumulation in history, African Americans who were able to afford homes found themselves consigned to communities where their investments were affected by the FHA.”
“If we are truly at the precipice of a transformative moment, the most tragic of outcomes would be that the demand be too timid. If we are indeed serious about creating a more just society…We must get to the root of it.”
5/ The prologue to the 20th Anniversary edition of @BDTSpelman’s classic could easily stand on its own.
“We can’t overlook the way housing patterns have been shaped historically by race based policies such as restrictive covenants, redlining & discriminatory mortgage lending…”
6/ In her book, “The Sum of Us,” @hmcghee opens with a simple question that has now been the driving my research: “Why can’t we have nice things?”
From segregated pools in Pittsburgh to the collapse of unions, we are reminded that equity does not have to be a zero sum game.
@hmcghee 7/ "'What’s the worst that could happen?' her husband asks, and she can’t speak it — the worst. Instead, she tries to turn off the little voice in her head, the one that wants to know: How exactly do you cure bad blood?"
8/ A must read for all in medicine: Medicaid Apartheid by @haw95.
“An almost innate resistance to medical research is ascribed all African-Americans… often the fear of becoming an unwitting subject is laid to one single instance of abuse rather than a centuries long history...”
9/ Published in 1992, this classic from Harvard law professor, Derrick Bell, blends allegory & historical narrative to examine racism’s role in American society.
“Black people are the magical faces at the bottom of society’s well... Only by working together is escape possible.“
10/ From Michelle Alexander, 10 years after "The New Jim Crow."
"I wrote it to challenge our nation to reckon with the recurring cycles of racial reform, retrenchment and rebirth of caste-like systems that have defined our racial history since slavery."
“A popular African-American weekly, The Chicago Defender would publish dozens of stories of families leaving the South. If all of their dream does not come true, enough will come to pass to justify their actions.” nytimes.com/2010/09/05/boo…
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This was a study of >81,000 MCAT examinees (0.3% American Indian or Alaska Native, 21.3% Asian, 10.1% Black, 8.0% Hispanic, and 60.4% White) from 2015-2018.
I don’t know about y’all, but this was *the* hardest test I took. 😳
If y’all read *one* thing today, might I suggest this new article in @NEJM?
“The belief that Black people have denser bones, more muscle, or thicker skin led radiologists and technicians to use higher radiation exposure during x-ray procedures.”
In the latest issue of @JAMA_current, my mentor Michael Fine, Donna Washington and I were invited to discuss a new 📝 on disparities in SGLT2i and GLP1-RA use for diabetes and what it means for the field of #Pharmacoequity research.
2/ As has been discussed frequently over the last month with the insulin co-pay provisions in the #InflationReductionAct, >37 million people in the US have #diabetes.
Regrettably, underrepresented racial and ethnic groups folks have ⬆️ rates of diabetes.
3/ Even with the ⬆️ rates of diabetes, Black, Hispanic, and Asian patients in the US have been shown to have lower rates of #diabetes treatment, especially with the newer drugs available such as SGLT2i & GLP1-RAs.
In @JAMANetworkOpen, we found that VA patients with #AFib who experience homelessness had a 21% ⬇️ odds of receiving stroke-preventing anticoagulation (blood thinners).
Previously, if you looked up "homeless & atrial fibrillation" in PubMed, only 5 results came up.
This included a 2003 @JAMAInternalMed study that saw that Ohio Medicaid enrollees had ⬇️ use of warfarin if they had homelessness or inadequate housing.
As part of a special issue on 💊 costs & access, we wrote a broad review on “Pursuing #Pharmacoequity - Determinants, Drivers, and Pathways to Progress.
We talk social & health policy, research, patient & prescriber factors. 👇🏾👇🏾
2/ Understanding the multilevel determinants that influence equitable access to medications (and trying to do so in <5000 words (!) was the goal of our review.
With so many factors out there, we know we only began to scratch the surface.
Led by future Dr. @rohankhaz, we dive into the challenges & opportunities in ensuring that patients and communities most affected by the pandemic can get the care they need.
2/ At risk of redundancy, we previously discussed the challenges in achieving #Pharmacoequity, including in the pandemic, noting, “…For example, treatment of patients with #COVID19 has revealed substantial inequities in access to life-saving treatments.”
3/ That observation was supported by national CDC data from earlier this year, as well as a recent national analysis of Medicare enrollees that found that Black patients had a 23% ⬇️ odds of receiving monoclonal antibodies when diagnosed with #COVID19.