Brownsville, Brooklyn is among the New York City neighborhoods hardest hit by the coronavirus. This comes as no surprise to local activists, who have long witnessed the disproportionately heavy toll of death and disease on communities of color. Black and Latino people make up about 95 percent of the population here. Nationwide, these communities have been three times as likely to get COVID-19 as white people and twice as likely to die from it, according to recent data from the US Centers for Disease Control. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) partnered with the Brownsville Multi-Service Family Health Center (BMS) to run a Brownsville, Brookyln, COVID-19 testing facility during the first wave of the pandemic. Providing access to testing has been crucial but came with serious obstacles. "Some of the challenges we face are perceptions that are historical," says Renee Muir, director of development and community relations at BMS, "that there's a deliberate infection plan that's happening, and it's population control, so don't go get tested." Infamous cases of abuse like the Tuskegee experiment, in which some 400 black men with syphilis were denied treatment for decades as part of a federally funded study, have eroded community trust in the medical system. BMS works at the grassroots level to address the questions people have about the coronavirus in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and eliminate barriers to care. They also respond to an array of related needs—from education to nutrition. Muir says that the pandemic is a wake-up call for health providers to address the underlying conditions that contribute to racial disparities in health care. Read more about COVID-19 here: [ Ссылка ] Read more about Brownsville Multi-Service Family Health Center (BMS) here: [ Ссылка ]
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