Despite national efforts to increase insured rates over the past two decades, racial healthcare inequities haven't budged, according to JAMA.
A study published Aug. 17 found that between 1999 and 2018, gaps between racial groups' health statuses did not significantly change.
This trend persists even when the data is stratified by economic status, except between low-income Black and white respondents.
"We're failing," Harlan Krumholz, MD, the study’s senior author, told The New York Times. "If our national goals are to improve the population's health and promote more health equity, then we have to admit that whatever we're doing now is not doing the trick. This should wake us up, and spark us to think of new and better approaches."