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Black medical school graduates carry about $40,000 more median debt than white peers per the AAMC's annual Debt, Costs, and Loan Repayment Fact Card. The seven federal and state programs below all reduce that load, …
This week
This week, we are focusing on a question that affects millions of Black families: why does the American healthcare system consistently underestimate Black patients' pain? From obstetric complications dismissed as exaggerated to sickle cell crises undertreated in emergency rooms, the data on pain bias in medicine are now overwhelming. Our lead story this week reports the research in depth and speaks to the Black clinicians building the evidence base to change it. If this reporting matters to you, share it and sign up for our newsletter below.
From our editor, Simone Abara, May 17, 2026
Decades of research point to the church as the most-trusted, most-studied non-clinical setting for closing a treatment gap …
A 2012 Psychiatric Services systematic review by Sidney H. Hankerson found that African Americans underutilize traditional mental-health services …
A CDC MMWR analysis of 50 large tuberculosis outbreaks across 23 US states between 2017 and 2023 found …
A 2017 Cochrane systematic review pooled 27 randomized trials of continuous labor support covering 15,858 women across high-income, …
A 2015 JAMA Internal Medicine analysis of the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation followed 3,302 women …
A 2016 meta-analysis pooled 78 studies of culturally adapted psychological interventions covering 13,998 participants, 95 percent of whom …
Community
Education
Black LGBTQ+ people face the sharpest within-Black health disparities in the United States. Black men who have sex with men …
ReadBlack women in the United States face the widest maternal mortality gap in the high-income world. In 2023, the Black …
ReadBlack men develop heart failure at a median age of 39, two decades before white peers, per the CARDIA cohort …
ReadApproximately 1 in 365 Black or African American babies is born with sickle cell disease, and about 1 in 13 …
ReadBlack seniors are Medicare-enrolled at similar rates to white seniors but receive less hospice, more intensive end-of-life procedures, and fewer …
ReadData
1 in 365
Black American births inherit sickle cell disease, making it the most common genetic disease in the Black community
Updated April 1, 2026
View data Access & Coverage2.4M
Black Americans fell into the Medicaid coverage gap in states that have not expanded, losing access to subsidized coverage
Updated March 30, 2026
View data Maternal & Reproductive3.3×
Black women die from pregnancy-related causes at 3.3 times the rate of white women
Updated March 15, 2026
View dataPolicy
H.R. 3888
Environmental justice research consistently shows Black and low-income communities bear disproportionate PFAS exposure. A 2021 Nature Communications study …
View analysisH.R. 567
Black adults have lower rates of employer-sponsored insurance and higher Medicaid enrollment rates relative to white adults. In …
View analysisH.R. 2234
Black women die in childbirth at 3.3 times the rate of white women in the United States (CDC …
View analysisHealth Reference
2x
Alzheimer's disease is a progressive brain disorder that destroys memory, language, judgment, and the …
View guide1 in 10
Anxiety disorders include generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, specific phobias, …
View guide~13% of African Americans carry two high-risk APOL1 variants
APOL1-mediated kidney disease is a genetic kidney condition driven by two specific variants in …
View guide7.7x
In 2021 the asthma death rate among non-Hispanic Black children was 7.7 per million, …
View guide19.3%
Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic, relapsing inflammatory skin disease driven by skin-barrier dysfunction …
View guide~2x
A 63-year-old Black woman walks into a clinic with palpitations and gets told she's …
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