The U.S. has recorded more than 100,000 deaths from COVID-19. The numbers also show that black and brown people are up to 3.5 times more likely to die of the virus than white people. This pandemic has further exposed the long-standing inequities and injustices that people of color, particularly Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people, experience within the U.S. health care system. How does racism play a role? While factors such as lack of access to affordable insurance and healthy food are partly to blame, death rates for many conditions are disproportionately higher among people of color even when controlling for these items.

Racism is a visible and invisible through line­­ that we must understand, call out, and confront. Watch Aspen Health Innovators Raegan McDonald-Mosley, MD, MPH, and Thomas Fisher, MD, MPH, who are on the frontlines of health care, as they discuss this issue with NPR’s Maria Hinojosa and take audience questions.

This session is part of the COVID-19: Health Care at an Inflection Point webinar series, co-produced by the Aspen Institute’s Health Innovators Fellowship and Health, Medicine & Society Program.

Read the full article about racism in health care structures at The Aspen Institute.