Black Americans continue facing severe health disparities across nearly every measure of medical care and outcomes, according to a new report marking the 100th anniversary of Black History Month. Compared to white people, Black people have worse health outcomes on approximately 70 percent of examined metrics, including life expectancy and general health status.
Black women are nearly three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. Addressing social determinants of health is essential to ending these racial disparities in maternal mortality. Higher educational attainment and income level do not provide the same degree of benefit in reducing maternal mortality for Black women as they do for white counterparts. Black women living below the federal poverty level experienced maternal mortality at a rate three times higher than white counterparts at the same income level.
Racial disparities in maternal mortality have actually worsened over the past century. In 1915, the maternal mortality rate for Black women was 1.8 times higher than for white women. By 2018, that gap had widened dramatically, with Black women facing a maternal mortality rate 3.2 times higher than white women.
Black Americans are 2.5 times more likely to be hospitalized for diabetes complications and are 30 percent more likely to die from heart disease than white Americans. Communities with the highest proportion of Black residents face four times the odds of hospital closures compared to those with the fewest Black residents.
Around 18 percent of Black adults report being treated unfairly by a health provider due to their race or ethnicity, while only 6 percent of physicians are Black compared to 63 percent who are white.
See: “Black Americans Continue to Face Adverse Health Outcomes in Donald Trump’s America” (February 1, 2026)
