Is Healthcare Pollution Making Us Ill?
Pollution from the healthcare industry disproportionally impacts the lives of people of color. Our columnist explores how we can heal the Earth and ourselves.
April 16, 2021
April 16, 2021
Earth Day is upon us, and as I sit with my daughter and color paper replicas of the planet in blues and greens, I can’t help but think about the ways the United States’ treatment of the Earth impacts our health as Black folks living in America.
What I already knew: air pollution is the fourth greatest overall risk factor for poor health worldwide (slotting behind only high blood pressure, dietary risks, and smoking). It kills a whopping 18,000 people a day. But before it kills you, it opens the door to chronic illnesses like lung cancer and asthma. We’ve long known that people of color in the United States carry a higher pollution burden than our white counterparts it’s 1.28 times the burden of the overall population. For Black folks like me, it�