No, slavery does not explain black-white health disparities

The latest paper linking poor health outcomes in black Americans to past racial injustices has come under scrutiny from independent experts.

“Historical slavery predicts contemporary disparities in mortality between Black and White Americans,” claims a paper this summer in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The authors argue “[c]ounties with greater reliance on slavery in 1860 have higher contemporary mortality rates for Black Americans but lower rates for White Americans.”

Researchers, led by University of California Berkeley Professor Manuel Galvan, did not look at the actual number of slaves. Rather, they used the “cotton suitability” of soil as a proxy.

This is one of the key issues with the study, however, according to experts from Do No Harm.

Read more at the College Fix.