Mortality rates among American Indian and Black women are three times higher than the rate for white women. To understand the racial disparities we see in today’s healthcare system, it could be worth examining the past.

Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens is part of a growing group of historians examining the history of race and medicine. She joins us for the hour.

In her book Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and The Origins of American Gynecology, she explores the early history of reproductive healthcare, where enslaved women were subject to forced experimentation and operations, without anesthesia.

Later, we learn about the Hear Her Campaign.

GUESTS:

• Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens: Associate Professor of History & Africana Studies at the University of Connecticut. She is also the author of Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and The Origins of American Gynecology
• Dr. Veronica Pimentel: Maternal fetal medicine specialist and Director of Research of the OB GYN Residency program at St Francis Hospital and Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Frank H. Netter School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University.

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