Announced today, BET, the nation’s leading provider of quality entertainment and public affairs television programming for the African-American audience, and HealthiNation, an award-winning producer and publisher of health videos, the launch of a digital content initiative to help achieve African American healthcare equity. The initiative is to provide informative, culturally relevant health and medical information to help address healthcare disparities among African Americans.
While health inequities have been prevalent for generations, the COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated the significant health and wellness disparities for people of color, among Black American patients and even healthcare professionals.
- Black Americans are three times more likely to contract COVID-19 and twice as likely to die from the virus.
- The current COVID-19 vaccination rate is much lower among Black Americans than their white peers.
- Only 5 percent of physicians are identified as Black or African American.
- African Americans are more likely to have diabetes, high blood pressure and other chronic conditions than non-Hispanic whites.
This long-term initiative between BET and HealthiNation will address these disparities through an ongoing series of videos that feature healthcare providers of color addressing topics including diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, mental health, and preventative care. It will also include educational resources to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 and separate vaccination facts versus fiction. New content will appear on BET.com/health every Wednesday.
BET.com/health will connect Black patients with Black doctors, while serving as an informative resource for experts and strategic partners to connect with audiences that prioritize their health. This digital content initiative will bring important content to BET’s audience and facilitate new partnerships with industry-leading healthcare professionals and organizations.
HealthiNation is committed to increasing awareness of health inequities and encouraging communities to take responsibility for their health. Through its partnership with BET, it will expand its reach as a resource through which Black people can learn to be their own health care advocates and address the conditions and risk factors that significantly affect the African American community.
BET seeks to leverage its position as a leading provider of entertaining, engaging and empowering content and its partnership with HealthiNation to contribute meaningfully to the current conversation about racial equity in healthcare, while equipping our audiences with tools and resources to take control of their own health.
For more information, visit www.BET.com/health.
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Source: BET, HealthiNation
