Racism in health care: One-third of blacks have never been to the dentist or…

The platform of the Center for Studies and Data on Racial Inequality (CEDRA) was updated on Wednesday (20), with health data in Brazil up to 2019. The survey revealed that 29.2% of Black population Brazilian women have never been to a dentist or have not seen a professional dentist for more than three years. Among whites, this percentage is 20.1%.

However, according to the platform, only 21.7% of the Black population had health or dental insurance as of 2019. Among whites, the number is as high as 40%. Furthermore, research indicates that 34% of Black adults have a negative perception of oral health.

The platform also shows that 43.9% of Black adults have never had an eye exam or had one more than two years ago. Eggs 36.1%. Among black children under the age of two, 24.2% did not undergo an ear test, or newborn hearing screening, which is an important test to discover whether a newborn has hearing problems. Only 12% of white children did not take the exam.

For Helio Santos, president of the deliberative council of CEDRA, the research data, produced through the exchange of information from DataSUS and the Ministry of Health, shows that there is a gap between whites and blacks in access to health in the country.

“The data allow for an x-ray examination of the health situation of the Brazilian black population, although there is evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this situation and exacerbated racial inequalities in health. These data show that systemic racism also exists in health,” Santos said. As well as in other areas of Brazilian life.

Access to oral health is a privilege for white people / Art: Sidra

All information in the survey is limited to the year 2019, explains Marcelo Trajtenberg, Sidra board member, who holds a PhD in statistical physics from the University of the South Pacific and a post-doc from the University of Oxford.

“The National Health Survey and the National School Health Survey (PeNSE) are the result of a partnership between the Ministry of Health and the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The first was implemented in 2013 and 2019, and the second has already been implemented since 2009, but the last year of data collection was in 2019. In other words, this is the most recent data from the two surveys. The data from SINASC (System for Live Birth Information) was collected between September and October of last year and 2020 was the last consolidated year available.”

Editing: Thalita Pires