Black Every Day: Medical Mistrust in Minority Communities

The relationship between black and minority communities and medical institutions has long been plagued with mistrust and skepticism. In the United States, there is a long history of the exploitation and manipulation of members of black and minority groups in medical research which include the Tuskegee study of 1932. Throughout our country’s history, skepticism of medical institutions and the caregivers within has resulted in an increase in negative health risks and outcomes which disproportionately affect ethnic minorities, like anti-immigrant rhetoric contributing to mistrust among Latinx communities and increasing barriers to care-seeking. Today, we continue to see these influences playout in black and minority communities as the Coronavirus pandemic blankets the United States.