When he worked at a hospital in downtown Los Angeles, Dr. Gregory Taylor saw cases that reflected the community where he grew up: a host of underlying health conditions killing black patients.
Taylor, an internist, called those conditions — diabetes, high blood pressure, respiratory diseases — “a part of the community fabric” among black residents of South Los Angeles.
“It’s true across our ethnicity as a whole,” said Taylor, who grew up in Leimert Park and now works at Keck Hospital of the University of Southern California. “What you see over and over is black folks in a poorer state of health.”