October 23, 2021 — Jessica Nordell describes something like a quest in her new book, The End of Bias. “When I began this book, I thought I was writing a work of science. My plan was to read, study, synthesize the best evidence, and share what I found. The journey would be straightforward; it would be scientific and outward-facing […]
October 16, 2021 — A decade ago, Medicaid expansion was supposed to be a real winner for better access to care. It was a sweet deal for states adopting it. Yet our polarized politics have meant that even now, after a decade, some states are still dragging their feet. That leaves two million people from 12 states in limbo […]
August 20, 2021 — Between 2011 and 2019, the rate of gestational diabetes rose from 48 to 64 cases per 1,000. The rate rose across all racial and ethnic subgroups. But the risk is highest for Asian Indian individuals – twice the risk in the non-Hispanic White population. These data, published in JAMA this week, raise a note of […]
July 25, 2021 — Healthcare and policies on obesity serve people with wealth and privilege. The disparities are great in the U.S. But they exist everywhere. Just look at childhood obesity in the U.K. Consider the ten percent of children with the most social and economic deprivation. They have three times higher rates of obesity compared to the ten […]
May 28, 2021 — At AACE2021 yesterday, Fatima Cody Stanford, Patty Nece, and Ted Kyle drove a simple point home. It’s time to take weight bias out of healthcare. It harms health, amplifies health disparities, and gets in the way whenever someone living with obesity needs care. But solutions are within reach. Proper training for healthcare professionals can do […]
May 7, 2021 — Late last week, the FDA announced that it intends to ban menthol cigarettes. This is in part because these are the cigarettes that Black smokers prefer. Smoking takes a bigger toll on Blacks than Whites, so maybe this will help reduce a source of health disparities. Indeed it sounds like a good idea. Except that […]
May 4, 2021 — Patterns of disparities surround us so completely that we become immune to them. In fact, disparities even extend to the air we breathe. People of color have dirtier air to breathe and that contributes to disparities in health in countless ways. New research offers evidence that air pollution contributes to the risk of childhood obesity. […]
April 13, 2021 — In all of the work we do with nutrition, obesity, and metabolic health, nothing is more irritating than a false choice between prevention and treatment. More than a century old, the parable of The Ambulance Down in the Valley is a perfect expression of it. Shall we spend all of our money on an ambulance […]
April 11, 2021 — By and large, people can deal with anything they can talk about. But if they can’t talk about it, they can’t deal with it. Talking through a problem is the first step to solving it. Until now, though, racism in healthcare has been a problem that no one wants to talk about. Writing in the […]
March 23, 2021 — Bias comes in many forms. People express bias when they hold to a partial perspective about a person, group, thing, or idea. With bias comes the refusal to consider different points of view. Feelings, not facts, drive our biases and we all have them. On the subject of COVID-19, vaccines, and vitamins, this is especially […]
