How The Healthcare System Is Still Failing Black Americans

Average life expectancy in the U.S. decreased by just under three years because of the COVID pandemic. But, if you break it down further by racial and ethnic group, life expectancy for Black and Hispanic people declined about four years. There are a number of reasons for this disparity. Dr. Brian H. Williams is a trauma surgeon and author of the new book The Bodies Keep Coming: Dispatches from a Black Trauma Surgeon on Racism, Violence, and How We Heal joins Reset. We check in with him about his experiences in healthcare as a Black man and seeing how ongoing inequities in the system are impacting his non-white patients. Check out the rest of our catalog of interviews at wbez.org/reset.