Palmetto State Extra: Your Health And You

**Academic Study Finds Reparations To Black Americans Would Narrow Health Gap, Increase Life Expectancy**

BOSTON, MA - A study published today in JAMA Network Open concludes that the racial wealth gap has lethal implications for Black Americans. On average, White households have more than a 6 to 1 advantage over Black households in mean wealth, $980,549 to $142,330, contributing to widespread racial health inequities and shortened life expectancies.

Completed by researchers at Harvard Medical School, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, Drexel, and Duke, the study finds that eliminating the wealth gap with reparations payments would shrink racial inequities in health and longevity. The study links the low wealth of Blacks, a product of the legacy of slavery and subsequent discriminatory public and private policies and practices, to their shorter life expectancy.

“Our study demonstrates a reparations plan that raised Black net worth sufficiently to eliminate the racial wealth gap for Black American descendants of U.S. slavery would lengthen Black lives dramatically,” said Dr. William Darity Jr., professor of Economics, African and African American Studies at Duke University, and a co-author of the study.

The researchers analyzed data on 33,501 Black and White middle-aged Americans who were tracked for up to 26 years in the federally-funded Health and Retirement Study, which collects comprehensive data on each person’s wealth. Specifically, it includes data rarely available in health studies, such as net value of investments, housing equity, vehicles and other assets.

Among the research subjects, whose average age was 59 at the outset of the study, the odds of dying for Blacks was 26% higher than their White counterparts, equivalent to 4.0 fewer years of remaining life expectancy. The researchers found that differences in wealth accounted for much of the life expectancy gap and projected the effect of equalizing wealth through reparations payments. Their analysis indicates that fully closing the wealth gap would nearly equalize the two groups’ odds of dying, greatly reducing the current Black-White inequity in life expectancy. “Our findings add to the compelling moral case for reparations,” said Dr. Kathryn Himmelstein, a study co-author and infectious disease fellow at Harvard's Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women's Hospitals. “Compensating Black families for the economic legacy of slavery and discrimination would do more than heal their finances – it would improve their health and add years to their lives.”

Some activists and scholars have long advocated reparations for Black Americans as compensation for the racism that began with slavery and continued with Jim Crow laws, New Deal programs that initially excluded many Black Americans, housing policies that limited Black families from gaining intergenerational wealth, and other racist government policies and practices. Reparations advocates point to historical precedents like the U.S. government’s payments to previously-interned Japanese Americans and Germany’s payments to Holocaust survivors. Poll data from 2021 suggest 36% of all Americans, including 86% of Black Americans, support reparations (up from 15% of Americans in 2014), and 196 members of Congress have signed on to a bill that would establish a federal commission to study reparations.

“Many health workers are aware of the deadly impacts of racism on health for Black people, but few have supported reparations as a remedy,” said Dr. Michelle Morse, a co-author of the study and internal medicine physician and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. “This research makes it clearer than ever for the medical and public health community to consider reparations as a remedy to advance racial justice and health equity.”

**Navigating to Earlier Detection of Lung Cancer**

Building on the success of our Lung Cancer Screening program, the McLeod Health team has been detecting lung cancer earlier and saving lives through low-dose CT scans for more than seven years. Since that time, the cancer team has expanded the program to include four dedicated nurse navigators, a lung nodule clinic and patient conferences with multiple specialists.

Now, the addition of innovative early detection technology is enabling the team to precisely track and diagnose lung cancer in its earliest stages with electromagnetic navigation. This new technology revolutionizes the speed and accuracy with which lung cancer can be diagnosed, allowing for treatment to begin sooner.

Offered at McLeod Regional Medical Center and McLeod Health Seacoast, the SPiN Thoracic Navigation System provides electromagnetic navigation and guidance to distant regions of the lungs in a minimally invasive outpatient procedure, enabling McLeod Health Pulmonologists to locate, biopsy and plan treatment for lung nodules that were previously difficult to access with traditional technology. The McLeod team is utilizing the system to act sooner and not wait for nodules to grow before they are biopsied.

**Sisters of Charity Foundation of SC Awards $837,000 in Grants Statewide**

The Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina has awarded grants totaling $837,000 to 100 nonprofit organizations throughout the Palmetto State, including three national groups serving South Carolina statewide. Each organization is working to better the lives of those experiencing poverty in South Carolina.

ince 1996, the Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina has awarded over 3,300 grants to South Carolina nonprofits totaling over $82 million.

“It is an honor to support this group of nonprofit partners who are working tirelessly to provide hope for people experiencing poverty in South Carolina,” Foundation President and CEO, Donna Waites says. “Our foundation’s mission could not be fulfilled without these impactful organizations and their loving service to others.”

The latest round of grants was awarded to nonprofits that are working to reduce poverty in South Carolina in one of three ways:

Meeting the immediate needs of people experiencing poverty

Breaking the cycle of poverty

Working to change the systems that are drivers of poverty

**Aiming for Systems-Level Change, Home Visiting All Sites Assembly Brings Home Visitors and State Agencies to the Table**

For the first time in over two years, home visitors across the state came together in person for the 2022 Regional All Sites Assembly, an annual training event hosted by Children’s Trust of South Carolina. This year’s gathering, however, looked completely different from previous assemblies.

In past years, we’ve offered traditional professional development, but this year we wanted to focus on building local relationships by bringing home visitors and state agencies together,” said Katrin Bost, Children’s Trust home visiting systems coordinator.

Home visitors – who can be nurses, social workers, or child development specialists – support preventive health and prenatal practices, help parents understand developmental milestones, promote the use of positive parenting techniques, and work with mothers to set goals for the future, continue their education, and find employment and childcare. They often work with families from pregnancy until the child turns two years old.

As South Carolina’s lead agency for the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) federal grant since 2010, Children’s Trust supports three evidence-based home visiting models – Healthy Families America, Nurse-Family Partnership, and Parents as Teachers – in partnership with 73 implementing agencies across the state.