HEALTH & WELLNESS

Olympian sprinter Tori Bowie’s surprising death illustrates the lack of support for Black maternal health, advocates say. What do you want to know about maternal health? We want to hear from you, our readers, about what we should be reporting and how we can serve you. Get in touch here. Olympic medalist Tori Bowie was eight months pregnant when something went wrong, and she died alone, in the middle of giving birth. Though her obituary estimates that she died around April 23, Bowie’s body was not found until May 2, when local authorities in Orange County, Florida, performed a welfare check on her. Whereas often the stories and names of those impacted by the maternal mortality crisis go unheard of, Bowie was a three-time Olympic medalist who at one point was deemed the “world’s fastest ...

Parasitic infections hit the health of low-income Black communities where states have neglected sewage systems. Intestinal infections take a heavy toll on impoverished Black communities that have out-of-date sewage systems. These infections often spread through contaminated soil and water and are among the most common diseases worldwide. Approximately one-quarter of the global population is infected with soil-transmitted helminths, intestinal parasitic worms that can cause serious health problems. Additionally, up to 50% of people around the world are infected with Helicobacter pylori, bacteria that live in the stomach and can cause ulcers and cancer. I am a biological anthropologist, and it is clear to me that these two types of infections contribute to systemic health inequities, espe...

Hopelessness about the future is a key reason some Black young adults consider suicide, new study finds. Feeling hopeless about the future is one of the primary reasons Black young adults consider suicide. That is one of the key findings from a new study I published in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. Hopelessness proved to be the most common reason that Black men considered suicide, and it was one of the most common reasons Black women consider suicide. The Black young adult women in this study were more likely to seriously think about suicide because they could not live up to the expectations of other people and because they felt lonely and sad. The study analyzed survey responses from 264 Black young adults between the ages of 18 and 30. I recruited participants on...