A/74/274 authority. Many of the people of African descent who were stopped by the police said that they had experienced racial profiling, an unlawful practice that undermines their trust in law enforcement authorities. Racial bias and stereotyping with respect to economic, social and cultural rights 70. Racial bias and stereotyping have a clear impact on the rights to education, housing, employment and health. With respect to health, people of African descent often lack access to preventive health services, receive lower-quality care and experience worse health outcomes for certain conditions. The understanding that racial bias and racism impact medical care is increasingly in focus in the medical community. 41 For example, in the United States, people of African descent are undertreated for pain, and research suggests that pervasive racial stereotypes and false beliefs about black people impact medical professionals’ assessments of patients’ pain. 42 The same research suggests that racial bias in pain perception also creates racial bias in treatment recommendations. Women of African descent experience more severe maternal morbidity as well – several times the rate of white women. 43 Research shows that unconscious bias affects the quality of care that women of African descent receive. Furthermore, racial disparities and the increased risks for black women are not ameliorated by social status, income or education, as was seen in the case of tennis player Serena Williams. 44 71. Entrenched racial disparities indicate that education is also less accessible to people of African descent. Race-based stereotypes about the scholastic ability of students of African descent have had a devastating impact. In many inst ances, teachers recommend that children of African descent follow educational paths that reduce their opportunities for higher education. In some countries, the educational system “feeds” children of African descent into the juvenile or criminal justice system via policy measures such as installing police in schools as security and managing school climate and student discipline by funnelling it through the criminal justice system in what is referred to as the “school-to-prison pipeline”. 72. Many schools in urban areas are underresourced and incapable of providing the basic level of education to prepare children for secondary and post -secondary school. Just as troubling, many tests used to assess student excellence maintain designs that eliminate systematically most or all students of African descent from consideration. Yet, instead of questioning the test’s design (as would happen if the test eliminated __________________ 41 42 43 44 18/22 See Martha Hostetter and Sarah Klein, “Transforming care: reducing racial disparities in health care by confronting racism?”, The Commonwealth Fund, 27 September 2018). Available at https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletter-article/2018/sep/focus-reducingracial-disparities-health-care-confronting. See Kelly M. Hoffman, Sophie Trawalter, Jordan R. Axt and M. Norman Oliver, “Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 113, No. 16, 19 April 2016. Available at https://www.pnas.org/content/ 113/16/4296.full. New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, “Severe maternal morbidity in New York City, 2008–2012”, New York, 2016. Available at https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/ downloads/pdf/data/maternal-morbidity-report-08-12.pdf. (This report states that: “Nationally, Black non-Latina women are three times as likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth and twice as likely as White non-Latina women to experience [severe maternal morbidity]. A recent report on New York City pregnancy-associated mortality found that Black non-Latina women were 12 times as likely as White non-Latina women to die from pregnancy-related causes”) . See Sheela Nimishakavi, “Racism, not race, causes health disparities for black mothers”, Nonprofit Quarterly, 18 April 2018. Available at https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2018/04/ 18/racism-not-race-causes-health-disparities-black-mothers/. 19-13272