• 51% of Black adults believe the health care system was designed to hold Black people back a great deal or fair amount.
• 55% of Black adults believe medical researchers today conduct experiments on Black people without their knowledge or consent.
• The belief that medical experimentation without consent occurs today was higher among respondents who said they had experienced discrimination.

Roughly half of Black adults in the U.S. believe the country’s health care system was designed to hinder Black people from success, survey results show, with a similar share saying medical researchers today experiment on people in the Black community without their knowledge or consent.

The findings published this week by the Pew Research Center are drawn from the responses of more than 4,700 Black adults in September and underscore how mistrust can pose a barrier to curbing the many racial health disparities currently prevalent in the U.S. They also indicate that historical mistreatment of Black patients by the medical community continues to resonate alongside more current experiences of discrimination.

“Trust is hard to gain and easy to lose,” says Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “While there’s been enormous progress in putting in systems to make sure people are treated fairly, as well as prevent inappropriate research on people without their consent, people still are........

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