The underfunding of the public sector has had real consequences for public hospitals that primarily serve patients of color, often low-income and uninsured patients of color. Equity work and racial outsourcing in those settings were particularly acute, because many Black healthcare workers who are employed in public hospitals go to those settings because they have a real commitment to treating patients who have had a long history of being mistreated in the healthcare system. But there's a sense from the workers that the organizations where they're employed really exploit and take advantage of that commitment.

Sociologist Adia Harvey Wingfield examines the labor of Black healthcare workers under racial outsourcing - as public hospitals and care centers tout the value of racial diversity, the actual labor required to serve communities of color is passed onto Black workers, often without additional resources, support or compensation.

Adia is author of the new book Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the New Economy from University of California Press.