Under the Skin

The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation

By: Linda Villarosa

Narrated by: Karen Chilton

Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • "A stunning exposé of why Black people in our society 'live sicker and die quicker'—an eye-opening game changer."—Oprah Daily

From an award-winning writer at the New York Times Magazine and a contributor to the 1619 Project comes a landmark book that tells the full story of racial health disparities in America, revealing the toll racism takes on individuals and the health of our nation.

In 2018, Linda Villarosa's New York Times Magazine article on maternal and infant mortality among Black mothers and babies in America caused an awakening. Hundreds of studies had previously established a link between racial discrimination and the health of Black Americans, with little progress toward solutions. But Villarosa's article exposing that a Black woman with a college education is as likely to die or nearly die in childbirth as a White woman with an eighth grade education made racial disparities in health care impossible to ignore.

Now, in Under the Skin, Linda Villarosa lays bare the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker” compared to their White counterparts. Today's medical texts and instruments still carry fallacious slavery-era assumptions that Black bodies are fundamentally different from White bodies. Study after study of medical settings show worse treatment and outcomes for Black patients. Black people live in dirtier, more polluted communities due to environmental racism and neglect from all levels of government. And, most powerfully, Villarosa describes the new understanding that coping with the daily scourge of racism ages Black people prematurely. Anchored by unforgettable human stories and offering incontrovertible proof, Under the Skin is dramatic, tragic, and necessary listening.

©2022 Linda Villarosa (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Washington Post, TIME, Harvard Public Health, Publishers Weekly, BookPage • J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize Winner • NYPL Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism Finalist

“Brilliant, illuminating. . . Meticulously researched, sweeping in its historical breadth, damning in its clear-eyed assessment of facts and yet hopeful in its outlook, Under the Skin is a must-read for all who affirm that Black lives matter.”—The Washington Post

“Singular and expansive. . . In this eminently admirable book, there are no easy answers or platitudes.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Perhaps one of the most important and thought-provoking publications of the year is Linda Villarosa’s groundbreaking Under the Skin. . . It’s a stunning exposé of why Black people in our society 'live sicker and die quicker'—an eye-opening game changer.”—Oprah Daily

Greatness exemplified

Excellent research with a true interaction of human experience. She tells the TRUTH!!! It is a pleasure to hear a full narrative

A Must Read

Loved this book. So much has been explained. Really tore off the band aid
and exposed all the disparities
I have always been a fan of Ms Villarosa.
The narration is perfection

Eye Opening and Validation of what I feel about access to healthcare.

The book was eye opening & a validation for me that as a black person in America if you’re not educated and have access to 4-5 star health insurance you will be tossed to the wolves. Health is Wealth isn’t just a saying in my Community. It can be a matter of life or death.

Astonishing

Like Elizabeth Rosenthal, Linda Villarosa makes an irrefutable argument that American healthcare is broken. Her theme is racial health disparities but the problems she describes affect individuals of all types. The text is sometimes repetitive and the performance is sometimes monotonous, but the story is always vital and engrossing.

This should be required reading for all healthcare professionals

This should be required reading for all healthcare professionals and there needs to be similar reading for all teachers no matter their race, because bias can be against your own race as well.

Personal stories

The book is a good survey of the effect of racism on the health of black Americans. It does not provide solutions to me. That means that the solution for this problem is a large societal endeavor and part of civil resistance and action against racism at large.

Narration was the best

I would recommend this to everyone specially public health students to learn more about racism in public health.

An important book

I read the author’s original sentinel article on blk maternal mortality in the NYT magazine. That article really raised awareness of the issues of implicit bias in health care and how it effects patients ( in a very bad way for blk folk). This book is that article fleshed out to book length with more information on how health outcomes are effected on blk folk as a whole. Definitely not pleasant reading but if you are looking for lighthearted entertainment you wouldn’t be reading this book anyway.

Amazing writing. Ridiculous cast.

Signed up for Audible plus just for this and I'm so glad I did. Hoping for a lot more stories like this! Going to go listen again now.

Excellent

Heartbreaking Honest Painful However we need to admit to our past and get to real work on a better future We need to stop kidding ourselves about how great America is because we’re behind dozens of better performing countries and it’s not because we’re being taken advantage of It’s because we want to hold on to Jim Crow if not actual 1700s slavery