Racism is a public health issue. Here’s why

by External Media Posts · 12/16/2024

KFF Health News journalist Cara Anthony has been covering racism and the ways it can affect people’s health for years. The project is about two killings of Black men that happened decades apart in Sikeston, Mo.: a lynching in1942 and a police shooting in 2020.

Racism is often covered as a political, cultural or news story. But how is it affecting our health?

That’s the question that Cara Anthony, KFF News reporter, wanted to answer. And she wanted to answer it not just on an individual scale, but on a community-wide one – to examine the medical impact of trauma that moves through families and across generations, and how to treat it. So for the past few years, she’s been reporting on a small town in the Midwest that illustrates that health issue: Sikeston, Mo.

Today on the show, Cara walks host Emily Kwong through Sikeston’s history — and what locals and medical experts have to say about how that history continues to shape the present. Plus, what’s the treatment for generational trauma?

Cara Anthony, Hannah Chinn, Emily Kwong, and Rebecca Ramirez December 16, 2024

Listen to the full podcast here NPR