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5 takeaways from AP’s series on health disparities impacting Black Americans

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:40:17 GMT

The Associated Press spent a year examining how racial health disparities have harmed generations of Black Americans. From birth to death, Black Americans fare worse in measures of health compared to their white counterparts. They have higher rates of infant and maternal mortality, higher incidence of asthma during childhood, more difficulty treating mental illness as teens, and higher rates of high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s disease and other illness as adults. Here are the key takeaways from each story:WHY ARE BLACK BABIES AND MOTHERS MORE LIKELY TO DIE?Black women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States — 69.9 per 100,000 live births for 2021, almost three times the rate for white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 2021 rate was a significant increase from the prior year.Black babies are also more likely to die, and also far more likely to be born prematurely, setting the stage for health issues that could follow them th...

US Border Patrol says agents who killed man in Arizona were answering report of gunfire

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:40:17 GMT

AJO, Ariz. (AP) — U.S. Border Patrol agents answering reports of gunfire shot and killed a man on a tribal reservation in southern Arizona after he abruptly threw something and raised his arm, the agency said Monday.The FBI and Tohono O’odham Nation are investigating Thursday night’s fatal shooting of Raymond Mattia.Monday’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection statement said tribal police had asked Border Patrol agents for help in responding to a report of shots fired west of the Menagers Dam community on tribal land near the U.S.-Mexico border.At around 9:30 p.m., the agents were told that reports indicated shots had been fired near the home of a “named individual” and a tribal officer went to the location to look for the person, with the agents following in separate cars, the statement said.A few minutes after arriving, the police officer and the agents encountered a man outside of a home near their parked cars, the statement said.The man threw some kind of object towar...

Medical racism in history causes health inequalities for Black Americans

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:40:17 GMT

The health inequities for Black Americans, documented in a series of stories by The Associated Press, have their roots in a long history of medical racism. The AP has collected a small sample of that history related to every phase of life.BIRTH: GYNECOLOGYJames Marion Sims, a 19th century Alabama surgeon heralded as the father of modern gynecology, pioneered a treatment for vesicovaginal fistulas, a condition that affects bladder control and fertility in women. Between 1845 and 1849, Sims carried out the once-experimental surgical treatment on a dozen enslaved women without the use of anesthesia. He has been both defended as a product of his era and panned as unethical and inhumane.Sims’ belief that Black people could endure more pain than white people is considered a form of racism and still present in the field of medicine. From medical school students of various racial and ethnic backgrounds to primary care providers of small and large practices, this bias has adversely impacted ...

Cars set on fire in Welsh capital as police face ‘large scale disorder’

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:40:17 GMT

LONDON (AP) — At least two cars were set ablaze and objects were hurled at police after a traffic accident Monday night in the Welsh capital Cardiff grew into what officials described as “large scale disorder.” Officers were called to the scene of a crash on Snowden Road in Ely district shortly after 6 p.m. Monday. Scenes livestreamed on YouTube showed dozens of people, many wearing hoods or balaclavas, milling around while others threw objects and shot off fireworks at a line of police officers with riot shields who were blocking one end of the street. At 8:21 p.m., South Wales Police urged people to leave the area and tweeted: “There is now a large number of officers working to manage the collision, but also to de-escalate ongoing disorder at the scene.” An hour later, police said emergency services remained at the scene and reiterated the importance of people staying away from the area. The force added: “Please avoid speculation – we will bring you the latest details ...

Jokic leads Nuggets past Lakers 113-111, and into first NBA Finals

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:40:17 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nikola Jokic is a player unlike almost anything the NBA has ever seen, and now he’s taking his Denver Nuggets somewhere they’ve never been.Jokic had 30 points, 14 rebounds and 13 assists, and the Nuggets advanced to the NBA Finals for the first time in team history Monday night, sweeping the Western Conference finals with a 113-111 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.Canadian Jamal Murray scored 25 points for the top-seeded Nuggets, who overcame LeBron James’ 31-point first half and a 15-point halftime deficit with a tenacious finish in Game 4 to earn their first conference title in their 47 NBA seasons.“It’s incredible,” Murray said. “It’s a lot of fun. It’s surreal. We’re going to keep making history, that’s the thing. We’re going to keep that mindset.”Jokic earned his eighth triple-double of the playoffs by the third quarter, breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s 1967 NBA record for triple-doubles in a single post-season. The bulky Serbian centre with a point...

Shelters start to fill in Guam as US territory in Pacific braces for Typhoon Mawar

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:40:17 GMT

HONOLULU (AP) — Authorities in Guam warned anyone not living in a fully concrete house to head to safety elsewhere and emergency shelters began to fill as residents braced for Typhoon Mawar, a powerful storm that could deliver the biggest hit in two decades to the U.S. territory in the Pacific.Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero urged residents in a YouTube message to remain calm and prepare for Mawar, which the weather service said could hit the southern part of Guam around midday Wednesday. She ordered the National Guard to help those in low-lying areas evacuate ahead of the storm as residents stocked up on jugs of water and generators.“Current forecasts are not favorable to our island,” she said. “We are at the crosshairs of Typhoon Mawar. Take action now, stay calm, stay informed and stay safe.”If Guam doesn’t take a direct hit, it will be very close, said Patrick Doll, the lead meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Tiyan, Guam.The center of the Category 3 storm was about 1...

A lifetime of racism makes Alzheimer’s more prevalent in Black Americans

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:40:17 GMT

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Constance Guthrie is not yet dead, but her daughter has begun to plan her funeral. It will be, Jessica Guthrie says, in a Black-owned funeral home, with the songs of her ancestors. She envisions a celebration of her mother’s life, not a tragic recitation of her long decline.As it should be. Constance has lived 74 years, many of them good, as a Black woman, a mother, educator and businesswoman.But she will die of Alzheimer’s disease, a scourge of Black Americans that threatens to grow far worse in coming decades.Black people are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than white people in the United States. They are less likely to be correctly diagnosed, and their families often struggle to get treatment from a medical system filled with bias against them. About 14% of Black people in America over the age of 65 have Alzheimer’s, compared with 10% of white people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The disparity is likely even more, beca...

High blood pressure plagues many Black Americans. Combined with COVID, it’s catastrophic

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:40:17 GMT

DISTRICT HEIGHTS, Md. (AP) — Charles Thomas was unwell but he had no time for rest.He was on the cusp of a management promotion and a move to Florida to begin a new chapter that would alter his family’s financial future and break the cycle of generational poverty. Yet, as his family’s prospects improved, concerns about his health grew. A severe bout of COVID-19 left the 52-year-old weak and in recovery for weeks. His wife, Melanese Marr-Thomas, worried he was pushing himself too hard to get back in the swing of things. Charles was a big man at 6 feet tall and 300 pounds. He struggled for years to get his weight under control.Later in life, that struggle gave way to high blood pressure and a medley of medications. In a nation plagued by high blood pressure, Black people are more likely to suffer from it — and so, in the time of COVID-19, they are more likely than white people to die. It’s a stark reality. And it has played out in thousands of Black households that have lost mothers a...

Black kids face racism before they even start school. It’s driving a major mental health crisis.

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:40:17 GMT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — To her students who need the most support, India Strother is rarely just “Ms. Strother” — she’s a family figure they call “Mom,” a trusted guide as they negotiate their teenage years.They open up to her about their dating lives. About pregnancy scares. About their fights with their parents, about the trauma they experience outside school. She keeps a mental list of those at risk of self-harm or suicide, and checks to see how they are doing. It’s just part of the job of being a counselor at any American high school. But at predominantly Black schools like the one in Columbus, Ohio, where Strother works, students’ mental health is further tested by pressures and discrimination they endure because they are Black, as well as poverty and violence in some communities that have faced years of disinvestment.“Anytime you deal with African American mental health, you’re not dealing with one thing,” Strother said. “It is several things. It is trauma that has not bee...

Black children are more likely to have asthma. A lot comes down to where they live

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:40:17 GMT

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Amid the balloons, cake and games at his best friend’s birthday party on a farm, 5-year-old Carter Manson clutched his small chest.“He just kept saying ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,’’’ his mother, Catherine, recalled tearfully. “I picked him up and told him it was OK and to just breathe. Just breathe.”It was the first time Carter had an asthma attack in public, and the inhaler he sorely needed was in the family car. Catherine calmed her terrified son and ran to get the inhaler; only then was Carter able to breathe easily. “You say in your head as a parent that I’m going to be prepared next time,” Catherine, 39, said.“But anything can trigger them,” she said.Black children are more likely to have asthma than kids of any other race in America. They’re more likely to live near polluting plants, and in rental housing with mold and other triggers, because of racist housing laws in the nation’s past. Their asthma often is more severe and less likely...