Navigating the Inequitable U.S. Healthcare System
In Search of Critical Care
By (author) Kellina Craig-Henderson
Publication date:
04 June 2024Publisher
Anthem PressDimensions:
229x153mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9781839987670
This book explores the existing inequities within the U.S. healthcare system and their impacts on individuals and in particular Black women, who seek life-saving healthcare. Specifically, it documents the impact of racial and ethnic inequities on the quest for critical health care in the context of a major health care crisis. More poignantly, as a healthcare consumer recently plunged into the marketplace for life-saving health care, the author systematically explored and documented the process of obtaining care as an African American woman against the backdrop of an emerging global pandemic. This book recounts some of these experiences by showing specific instances where the ogre of race intruded and influenced her access to life-saving care. Among other things, this book argues for increased formal and informal support structures within the healthcare system that are specifically focused on Black women’s survival, well-being and quality of life.
“This work provides personal and powerful insights into the U.S. healthcare system, its inequalities, and disparities from the perspective of an African American social scientist doctor who chose to journal her experiences as she pursued treatment for a life-threatening rare disease. Despite her higher socioeconomic status, insured status, and higher level of education, Dr. Craig-Henderson, as has been borne out in many instances, was not immune from these disparities. I hope that Dr. Craig-Henderson’s pursuit of life-saving health care and her death will provide similar insights into and solutions to these systemic issues that plague the U.S. healthcare system and are borne out in her book.” — Yvonne Noel, MD OB-GYN, located in Brooklyn, NY