Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
Doctors' offices shape 20% of health
The disparity
The disparity shows in the numbers: 59 percent of Black women over 20 are living with some form of cardiovascular disease, compared with about 40 percent of white women. A combination of healthcare bias and lack of access plays a role, along with what are called social drivers of health.
Social drivers of health
Those drivers include how people eat, education, food and housing insecurity, violence, trauma, and pollution. They can't be separated from a holistic approach to health. Black women are also more likely to develop pregnancy-related heart problems.
The awareness gap
Awareness sits at the other end of the problem. Only 44 percent of American women know that heart disease is their biggest health risk, and the figures are even lower among Black and Hispanic women.
Why can a ZIP code predict how long you live?
Neighborhoods differ in access to grocery stores, safe places to walk, clean air, stable housing, and nearby clinics. A project by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Virginia Commonwealth University found life expectancy differing by 20 years or more between neighborhoods only a few miles apart in some US cities. Many of the differences track income and historical patterns of segregation. The gap reflects daily conditions more than medical care alone.
Where does the 20 percent figure come from?
The County Health Rankings, produced by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, have long assigned clinical care about 20 percent of the weight in explaining health outcomes. The rest has gone to health behaviors, social and economic factors, and the physical environment. The model draws on research from scholars such as J. Michael McGinnis, who studied the causes of premature death in the 1990s and 2000s. The weights are estimates, and the exact figures differ between studies.
How does air pollution reach the heart?
Fine particles called PM2.5 are small enough to pass from the lungs into the bloodstream. Once there, they trigger inflammation and can make blood vessels stiffer and blood more prone to clotting. A 2010 scientific statement from the American Heart Association concluded that exposure to fine particulate matter contributes to cardiovascular disease and death. Traffic exhaust, wildfire smoke, and industrial emissions are common sources.
More from Next Question with Katie Couric
