Recent Imperial College paper highlighted on the Facebook page of Senator Bernie Sanders

US Senator Bernie Sanders shared a recent paper on Facebook highlighting the importance of expanding universal health coverage to reduce ‘avoidable’ deaths among Brazil’s black and mixed-race populations. The paper was published in the journal PLoS Medicine.

Dr Thomas Hone, Professor Christopher Millett, Professor Azeem Majeed and their colleagues from Fiocruz in Brazil, have analysed mortality data from 2000-2013 to determine the effect of the FHS on avoidable deaths in black and mixed-race Brazilians compared to white Brazilians.

They found rates of avoidable deaths were between 17 and 23% higher in black and mixed-race populations than in the white population during 2000-2013.