While the coronavirus has indiscriminately ravaged communities across the nation, African Americans are dying at disproportionately higher rates, according to preliminary data. Those who study racial health disparities aren’t surprised, considering that African Americans suffer inordinately from chronic conditions, symptoms linked to systemic racism, and a deleterious physiological process dubbed “weathering” three decades ago.

Features interviews with Dr. Uché Blackstock, a board-certified Emergency Medicine physician and founder & CEO at Advancing Health Equity; Dr. Sharrelle Barber, a social epidemiologist and assistant research professor at Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health; and Arline Geronimus, a professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, and associate director and research professor in the Population Studies Center at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

News Beat is an award-winning Morey Creative Studios podcast.

Producer: Michael "Manny Faces" Conforti
Editor-In-Chief: Chris Twarowski
Managing Editor: Rashed Mian
Episode Art: Jeff Main
Executive Producer: Jed Morey