Health

“Black women defy trend of declining life expectancies. What explains this miracle?”

“With black women being disproportionately overweight, overworked, overlooked and underpaid, you’d think they would be on the verge of extinction.

“What Doctors Should Ignore”

“Today, scientists understand the sickle cell trait as an adaptation to malaria, not evidence of inferiority. One copy of the sickle cell trait protects against malaria. Having two can cause severe anemia and even death. Scientists also know that the trait is common outside…

“Wimpy White Boy Syndrome’: How Racial Bias Creeps Into Neonatal Care”

“Stanford University School of Medicine researchers analyzed more than 18,600 hospital records for California-born babies with a very low birth weight (3.3 pounds or less). Intended to measure performance and…

“Why do we make children sleep alone?”

“This system of sleeping — adults in one room, each child walled off in another — was common practice exactly nowhere before the late 19th century, when it took hold in Europe and North America. Even in wealthy families that could afford to spread out, children…

“Can healthcare be cured of racial bias?”

“Even as the health of Americans has improved, the disparities in treatment and outcomes between white patients and black and Latino patients are almost as big as they were 50 years ago.

A growing body of research suggests that…

“African-Americans are at a higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease.”

“This is of even greater concern for African-Americans, who are two times more likely to develop late-onset Alzheimer’s disease than whites and less likely to have a diagnosis of their condition, resulting in less…

“The Black-White Sleep Gap”

“Gen­er­ally, people are thought to spend 20 per­cent of their night in slow-wave sleep, and the study’s white par­ti­cipants hit this mark. Black par­ti­cipants, however, spent only about 15 per­cent of the night in slow-wave sleep.

The study was just…