The year 2020 has yielded twin crises in the United States: a global pandemic and a public reckoning with racism brought about by a series of publicized instances of police violence toward Black men and women. Current data indicate that nationally, Black Americans are three times more likely than White Americans to contract Covid-19, a pattern that underscores the more general phenomenon of health disparity among Black and White Americans. Once exposed, Black Americans are twice as likely to die of (...) the virus. Unsurprisingly, Black Americans report higher levels of fear of Covid-19 than their White peers, but they also report higher levels of hesitancy toward a Covid-19 vaccine. This paper explores why this apparent discrepancy exists. It also provides practical recommendations for how government and public health leaders might address vaccine hesitancy in the context of the twin crises of 2020. (shrink)

Ms. Johnson’s case highlights a number of the ethical challenges that can arise when treating anorexia nervosa, including uncertainty about a patient’s decisional capacity, the limitations of treat...

In the original publication, the sentence “Most notable and famous are the Tuskegee syphilis experiments that occurred from 1932–1972, in which Black men in Macon County, AL were infected with syphilis under the guise of free health care.” under the section “Drivers of Mistrust of Motives” was published incorrectly. The correct one is “Most notable and famous are the Tuskegee syphilis experiments that occurred from 1932–1972, in which Black men in Macon County, AL many of whom had latent syphilis, were (...) misled into believing that they would receive free health care in exchange for their participation. (shrink)

Autism spectrum disorder affects an estimated 1 in 54 children aged 8 years in the United States. For many of these children, there are concomitant eating and/or behavioral challenges that can make managing their nutritional health challenging. This commentary responds to a particularly challenging case in which a pediatric patient with ASD presented to the local hospital’s emergency department with severe weight loss and malnutrition.