Physicians have known for years that racial minorities, especially African Americans, experience shorter lives because of a higher-than-average prevalence of maladies like kidney disease, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and hypertension.
My own family is a picture of poor health: my sister and I have experienced diagnoses of obesity, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, hypertension, breast cancer, kidney cancer, and stroke due to anesthesia. All of these happened before the age of 50.
There are many reasons for the health crisis among African Americans, the stress of systematic poverty being chief among them. But there is one major contributing factor that is much easier to fix than economic inequality and it lies within the everyday power of American doctors: better listening skills.
Research consistently shows that black patients — especially those who are poor or perceived as less sophisticated — receive less attention from their doctors during office visits.
[For more of this story, written by Darlene K Drummond, go to https://psmag.com/the-stress-o...3b5c230e6#.o5oxs2stt]
Comments (0)