“In Black, White, and Brown”: The Color Line in Medicine and Public Health, New York City, 1945--1965 (2004)
Aquino, Hilary Crisp (Author)
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Tomes, Nancy
Edition Details: Advisor: Tomes, Nancy
Physical Details: 283 pp.
Language: English
This dissertation examines, at its broadest level, the interrelationship between race, public health and medicine. It focuses on African American health but also utilizes Puerto Rican health as a comparative. It demonstrates the development of the existing two-tiered health system in the United States, caused, in large part, by institutional racism. This became most evident in the post World War II period through the Civil Rights Movement (1945--1965) when the federal government began to invest heavily in acute care facilities and biomedical research, rather than in prevention. The dissertation employs a case study of Manhattan, New York City, examining two of the most widely used barometers of overall health status, the infant mortality rate and the tuberculosis rate. The statistical differentiation between white, African American, and Puerto Rican residents supports the notion of a persistent color line in Americans from the rural South to the urban North, and the large influx of Puerto Rican migrants during World War II led to residential segregation, with its inherent problems of overcrowding and artificially inflated housing costs. Discrimination in the realms of employment and education also perpetuated poverty. This large population influx overburdened the already inadequate public health facilities available in Harlem. The schema begins with an overview of the health history of African Americans, from the beginning of the slave trade to 1965, and Puerto Ricans from post World War II migration to 1965. It then presents data from the New York City Department of Health's programs designed to combat infant mortality and tuberculosis. The dissertation then shifts to an explication of African American medical professionals, national Civil Rights groups and Harlem community organizations to end discrimination and segregation in the health care delivery system. Puerto Rican business and community leaders also joined the fight. The concluding segment examines the contemporary health status of both African Americans and Puerto Ricans.
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 65 (2005): 3532. UMI pub. no. 3148936.
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