Health Disparities

Jamaa Birth Village plans to open satellite midwifery birthing locations across Missouri next year. Patients can receive midwifery and doula care and social support services.

Residents in parts of north St. Louis and north St. Louis County will have the opportunity to access healthier food options and physical activities through a $3.8 million community health grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Affinia Healthcare is opening a 15,000-square-foot clinic in Ferguson on Nov. 2., which will be led by three Black women physicians. People can receive pediatric care, dental care, behavioral health services, lactation assistance, substance abuse support, family medicine care and midwifery services.

The Medical Humanities program at Washington University in St. Louis is hosting a forum Saturday on Medicine, Race, and Ethnicity in St. Louis. Scholars and doctors will discuss racism in health care in the St. Louis region, the well-being of Asian and Hispanic communities, and how activism and art can create change within the medical field.

Dr. Makeba Williams has examined the societal and medical factors that cause early-onset menopause in Black Americans.

Physicians have long believed it’s good medicine to consider race in health care. But recently, rather than perpetuate the myth that race governs how bodies function, a more nuanced approach has emerged: acknowledging that racial health disparities often reflect the effects of generations of systemic racism, such as lack of access to stable housing or nutritious food.

Three out of four leading Alzheimer's blood tests were less accurate in Black patients, putting them at risk of receiving the wrong medical treatment.

In the U.S., Black women have the highest maternal mortality rates. St. Louis-area doctors and abortion rights advocates say if Roe v. Wade is overturned and Missouri bans abortion, Black women would be at risk.

Affinia Healthcare will construct a 15,000-square-foot health center in Ferguson. The center will include family medical, pediatric, dental care and behavioral health services

BJC HealthCare, the hospital system that operates Barnes-Jewish Hospital and more than a dozen others in the St. Louis region, on Wednesday unveiled a strategic plan that aims to decrease health disparities between the city’s richest and poorest residents, particularly the gap in health outcomes for Black and white people.