Column: How Virginia’s health leaders are abandoning Portsmouth

Portsmouth has long been one of the poorest and Blackest cities in the commonwealth. More than half its residents are African American, and nearly 1 in 5 lives below the poverty line. Decades of underinvestment have made Portsmouth ground zero for health inequities — from HIV and STI rates several times higher than the state average to one of the worst maternal-mortality rates for Black women in the nation.

Instead of confronting these disparities, the Virginia Department of Health under Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Health Commissioner Karen Shelton and Deputy Commissioner Susan Fischer Davis has weakened the very programs meant to protect these residents. Their actions mirror a broader political agenda aimed at scaling back safety-net services while branding the changes as “modernization.”

Unde