Health care isn’t working for everyone. Watch a professor explain why.

Tina Sacks’ first inkling that health care wasn’t always equal came when she was a high school student in Chicago. Her mother, a Black woman from the South, was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer. 

“I always wondered when she went to the doctor if she was treated differently because she was a Black woman,” says Sacks, “or if she would have been treated the same as my dad would have been when he walked into the health care facility as a white guy.”

Today Sacks examines these inequalities as an associate professor in the School of Social Welfare, where she studies health disparities, including social determinants of health and poverty. Health disparities, Sacks and others have shown, leave women — particularly women of color, immigrants and other historically marginalized populations — with shorter lifespans than their white male counterparts. 

As she explains in this 101 in 101 video, a series from UC Berkeley that challenges campus experts to distill their work into only 101 seconds, health disparities often cut across education and wealth. 

“It doesn’t really matter necessarily how much money you have, if you have a college degree, if you have health insurance, because these differences in treatment affect people, even people who are famous and have a lot of money,” says Sacks.

Sacks points to the high-profile case of Serena Williams, the Olympian and seven-time Wimbledon-winning tennis pro. She nearly died of a pulmonary embolism after giving birth to her first child in 2018, despite raising concerns about her health with her doctors.

“She’s an example of what happens oftentimes when Black women and other racial and ethnic minorities and women go to the doctor,” says Sacks. “Unfortunately, we are not believed when we present with concerning health conditions.”

Watch the video to learn more about Sacks’ research and the interdisciplinary collaboration across the Berkeley campus that is working to bring better health care to everyone.

 Watch more 101 in 101 videos featuring UC Berkeley faculty and experts here.