when the centers for disease control declared last week that racism is a serious public health
threat in america it acknowledged something that researchers have found for decades on nearly every
measure of health african americans are more prone to serious disease and premature death
the coronavirus pandemic has provided devastating evidence of this black americans have died of
kovid 19 at twice the rate of whites and so far are being vaccinated at a dramatically lower rate
poverty and unequal access to high quality healthcare play a role in these disparities
but this is not a matter of genetics harvard researcher david williams
has spent his career showing what the cdc now recognizes racism itself can be a killer
the story will continue in a moment imagine a fully loaded jumbo jet with 220 passengers and
crew taken off and crashing today and the same thing happened every day next week and every day
next month and every day for the rest of the year that's exactly what is occurring when we say there
are racial disparities in health in the united states over 200 black people dying prematurely
every single day dr david williams who is originally from the caribbean island of saint
lucia is a professor of public health at harvard and chairman of its department of social and
behavioral sciences he has spent a quarter century researching the corrosive impact that racism has
on the health of people of color all around the world you have conducted rigorous psychological
sociological scientific studies of this phenomenon that's correct we've done studies in south africa
their colleagues doing studies in australia studies in the uk studies across the world
and we find in all of these contexts empirically statistically that experiences of discrimination
are directly impacting health can something as complex and subjective as racial discrimination
really be measured williams insists it can with a test that he created nearly 25 years ago
what is the everyday discrimination scale the everyday discrimination scale is a measure nine
item measure it has items like you're treated with less courtesy than others you're treated with less
respect than others you receive poorer service than others in restaurants or stores people act
as if they're afraid of you it's little ways in which your dignity is chipped away on a daily
basis and what we are finding is that persons who score high on the everyday discrimination scale
have a broad range of of adverse health conditions it predicts high blood pressure
um it predicts the onset of diabetes it predicts incident cardiovascular disease it predicts poorer
mental health professor williams has demonstrated that the health of black americans suffers
whether they are rich or poor well-educated or not black women with college degrees are
more likely to see their babies die as infants than white women who didn't finish high school
another stark example the 1970 graduating class at yale the black graduates were
three times more likely to die prematurely than their white classes that's correct i mean that's
the magnitude of some of the racial disparities and health we see just to make this abundantly
clear a black man or woman with a college degree making a lot of money is less well-off health-wise
than a white man or woman in the same category under the same circumstances
absolutely david williams research shows that even when treated in the same health care settings
black americans are less well cared for than whites one researcher coined the term weathering
to describe what is happening to african americans imagine a drop of water falling from the rooftop
of this building to the concrete sidewalk below if the water drips today it's no big deal but if day
in day out week in week out year in year out there is a constant drip drip drip of water
the sidewalk the concrete below would become weathered it becomes eroded by the constant
exposure to adversity and so what the research is suggesting that all of these stressors um
are weathering african americans in the same way i can't change the color i am
and i can't change the color my kids are and i can't you know change the way people see us
michelle thomas is a single mom raising six kids in atlanta she has felt the drip drip drip of all
of racism stressors you see the confederate flag being flowed you see people driving by calling you
the n-word and you're just walking down the street i don't know any other race that actually say they
have to have a talk with their kids about how to handle yourself when you're in the street or
how to handle yourself around a police officer how to handle yourself when you go
shopping in a store make sure your hands are not in your pocket there's a group she points
to a particularly painful moment in 2019 when her teenage son jerome who is on the autism spectrum
was stopped and handcuffed by atlanta police who said he fit the profile of a robbery suspect
i'm like if you talk to him for a little while you will know for a fact that my son had autism
but you didn't get a chance to know my son you just assumed that he was the criminal
and that broke my heart what was the impact on your son what did it do to him he was like mom
did i do something wrong and i'm like no baby you did nothing wrong it's just your skin and you're
like well you think this is going to happen to me again you know i had to say and i'm like yes
nine times out of ten this is going to happen to you plenty of times in your lifetime
people are really tired of these two americas they want to do something different shirley
franklin served two terms as mayor of atlanta and then as board chair of purpose-built communities
an organization trying to improve health outcomes for african americans by investing in black
neighborhoods dr williams told us that there is a 20 to 25 year gap in life expectancy based on
the communities we live in that's a remarkable number the life expectancy numbers are startling
and they're horrific one of the places where franklin's group is trying to change those numbers
is historic south atlanta the neighborhood of about two thousand people where michelle thomas
and her kids now live we determined that there were three key pillars one is community wellness
and and community health the sense of community spirit another is accessible affordable housing
and the third is education if we can improve the living conditions of individuals we actually can
improve their health let me give you an example of a study that was done years ago where they took
african americans who lived in public housing and randomly by the flip of a coin some of them remain
in public housing and some of them were given a voucher where they could go and find housing
in areas of lower levels of poverty than when they currently were research shows 10 to 15 years later
those african-americans who moved to a better neighborhood had lower rates of obesity
and lower diabetes risk no health intervention you just change the neighborhood a crucial
factor in that equation is access to healthy foods for years south atlanta
like many black neighborhoods was what's known as a food desert with no nearby grocery store
katie delp whose neighborhood non-profit works with former mayor franklin's group says she tried
to convince grocery chains to open a store you approached like every major supermarket chain to
ask them if they would build a supermarket in the neighborhood and they all said no they all said no
why the community does not have enough disposable income for a large supermarket so it doesn't work
for their model so delp and her colleagues decided to build a smaller one of their own
in 2015 they opened carver market with community grounds a coffee shop in the same building
do you remember your reaction the first time you saw or walked into carver market
yeah i was blown away like it's a cafe here and there's a grocery store i'm like wow
and i'm like this area is a food desert and we got something like this i was like
thank god amen i was so happy just the things you're saying to be able to walk into a store
and get fresh vegetables and fruits and have a coffee shop that's something many americans
just take for granted and that's not something that is available to everybody yes it's not
and it's sad and it should be to have grocery stores that provide affordable access to high
quality foods is a good thing from a health and nutrition point of view but in addition to that
it provides employment opportunities and really a job is a good health enhancing strategy
you have five percent off you want to use that today that has been precisely michelle
thomas's experience in south atlanta you didn't just want to shop at carver market
no i wanted to be a part of carver market how can i apply how can i get started what was your first
job my first job was a barista so what is your job now i'm assistant i'm general manager of
carver market you have a world today you come back and see this again okay the health benefits
that a nearby grocery store can provide have been proven in neighborhood after neighborhood
michelle thomas says she sees it in her own family compared to the food desert where she used to live
i could never get fresh fruit and vegetables the same day that i need them with carver market i
can actually just walk down the street like five blocks and i have fresh vegetables fresh fruit
and that's the point you want to give your kids something healthy it was my daughter's birthday
even with all the progress in south atlanta there's fresh trauma too last june rayshard
brooks was shot and killed by an atlanta police officer just a half mile from the carver market in
the unrest that followed the market was vandalized but that wasn't the whole story one thing that
struck me the morning after the vandalism was that we had neighbors everywhere you know sweeping up
glass scrubbing off graffiti boarding up windows we came together you wouldn't believe how many
neighbors came together and if you've seen that many people you know you're at a good place
that same week michelle thomas and her neighbors held a peaceful march that drew a stark contrast
to the violence they painted murals over graffiti live for the video everybody
and started bike rides to occupy neighborhood kids idled by the pandemic and recently more
than 400 neighborhood residents got a covid vaccine during a one day pop-up clinic we're
more than just a neighborhood we're more than just people we're a family and once you have a family
hey you have everything south atlanta is now one of almost 30 neighborhoods around the country
that are part of the purpose-built communities network all of them working to undo or at least
mitigate the damage done by decades centuries really of segregation and racism if you're working
community by community this is going to take a long time to reach your goals i mean people are
clamoring for change right now it took 400 years to get into this desperate situation so
your question about whether we do it one at a time doesn't set too well with me because we didn't
get here overnight and it's gonna take some it's gonna take some time to get out of this dilemma
you