blacks

A novel program in Tennessee aims to interest more Black and other minority medical students in organ transplants, to help ease troubling disparities.

After the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions, concerns have arisen that a pathway into medicine may become much harder for students of color. Heightening the alarm: the medical field’s reckoning with longstanding health inequities.

Novo Nordisk focuses on Black lawmakers and opinion leaders to spread the message that obesity is a chronic disease — worth treating at a cost of $1,000 or more a month.

Social and economic pressures have long compelled Black girls and women to straighten their hair. But mounting evidence shows chemical straighteners — products with little regulatory oversight — may pose cancer and other health risks.

Minorities tend to be diagnosed at later stages of the disease, which would exclude them from use of Leqembi. Few Black people were included in the main trial of the drug.

As many as 40% more Black male patients in the study might have been diagnosed with breathing problems if current diagnosis-assisting computer software was changed, the study said.

Despite medical advances, disparities are expected to worsen in the coming decades. The expansion of the aging population and rising numbers of people with conditions that put them at risk are expected to contribute to this alarming scenario.

The University of Florida health system is exploring ways to better engage Black adults in need of health care.

Infant mortality rates across the South are by far the worst in the U.S. A look at South Carolina — where multimillion-dollar programs aimed at improving rates over the past 10 years have failed to move the needle — drives home the challenge of finding solutions.

An EEG can help diagnose conditions like epilepsy, sleep disorders and brain tumors. But a design flaw and outdated Eurocentric practices make the test less effective on thicker, denser and curly hair types.