Racism and Health

 Racism is a Serious Threat to the Public's Health 

Racism is a system consisting of structure , policies , practices  and norms that assigns value and determines opportunity based on the way people look or the colour of their skin. This result in conditions that unfairly advantage some and disadvantage other throughout society.

Racism both interpersonal and structural negatively affects the mental and physical health of millions of people preventing them from attaining their highest level of health and consequently, affecting the health of our nation. A growing body of research shows that centuries of racism in this country has had a profound and negative impact on community of colour . The impact is pervasive and deeply embedded in our society affecting where one lives, learns, work, worship and play and creating inequities in access to a range of social and economical benefits such as housing, education, wealth and employment. These conditions often referred to as social determinant of health and key driver of health inequities within community of colour placing those within these populations at greater risk for poor health outcomes. The data show that racial and ethnic minority groups throughout the United States experience higher rate of illness and death across a wide range of health conditions including diabetes, hypertension, obesity, asthma and heart disease, when compared to their white counterparts. Additionally , the life expectancy of non- Hispanic/black american is four years lower than that of white american . 

   Racism also deprives our nation and the scientific and medical community of the full breath of talent, needed to best address racial and ethnic health disparities.

How does racism affect health?

Research shows that this history of individual and structure racism spanning generation denies opportunity to people of color and robes them of their physical and mental health. The life expectancy of people of color is often a decade or more shorter than their white neighbours just a few block away . They face a higher risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity and mental illness.  

             These health inequalities and often the diseases themselves , stem in part from the stress of being silenced , ignored, oppressed and targeted for violence. In connection with past and current Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) programs aimed at reducing health inequities and advancing health equity, this collection includes research findings and perspectives on the connections between race, racism and health.     Racism can have some serious effect on a person's psychological health. Our mind is like an open blank paper to new informations. What we think, hear, see or live like, becomes our story. Our story becomes our book. That boon is our life. The content that we add in that book, defines us. If we develop hate and a discriminative behavior towards a certain group, we may pertain in every time we encounter that group. This can be a serious issue as it will not let us see a  person as they are but rather we would have a tag until them making us think of them like from what they show. Or what their tag is. This is not a good thing. Identifying someone for what their tag shows rather than what they actually are is mis leading and stops us from understanding person as they actually are. We, as humans, should be able to understand different people with different mindsets so that we all can live in peace and harmony and then there may be no misunderstandings. Otherwise, there will always be clashes and hate speeches and abuses in groups and masses. This problem is not a new one but a rather old one. Earlier people of different places had different ways of having racism in their personalities. White people would discriminate with blacks. Higher castes with lower castes. Also, there were some based on what religion other people follow. The majority would show racism behaviour with the minorities.

Although, over time with modern reforms and good governance, and teachings, people have started removing racism from their personalities and live in peace and harmony with equity. This has resolved many social issues that used to prevail in earlier times and have made a lot of lives easy