The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

I don’t know how many times I have encountered folks who hold on to the claim that poverty is the sole indicator behind the death rate in the Black community. The following article does a good job spelling out ALL of the indicators.

[excerpted]

Blacks die younger than whites, regardless of income

By Tracy Wheeler

AKRON, Ohio – Poor. Working poor. Middle class. Wealthy.

It doesn’t seem to matter.

African-Americans, on average, die younger than whites, regardless of the money they make or the neighborhood in which they live.

In poorer neighborhoods of Summit County, Ohio, whites live almost three years longer than blacks. In more-well-to-do neighborhoods, this gap grows into a chasm: Whites live to an average age of 76.4, compared with just 67.1 for blacks.

That’s a difference of 9.3 years.

Nearly a decade of life, gone.

“I think it’s the new civil rights struggle,” said University of Dayton law professor Vernellia Randall.” African-Americans lag behind on nearly every health indicator, including life expectancy, death rates, infant mortality, low birth-weight rates and disease rates.

[...]

DISEASE BY DISEASE

Pick almost any disease, and blacks are hit much harder by it than whites. Consider these statistics from a variety of national, state and local organizations:

_Heart disease: Nationally, African-Americans are 50 percent more likely to have high blood pressure, which contributes to the risk of both heart disease and stroke, and they’re 20 percent more likely to die from heart disease. Yet they’re less likely to receive proper, timely treatment, even when they have insurance coverage.

_Stroke: In Ohio, African-American men are 53 percent more likely to die of a stroke than any other racial or gender group, while African-American women have the highest overall risk of a stroke.

_Diabetes: Nationally, blacks are 140 percent more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes, 30 percent more likely to undergo a diabetic-related amputation and 120 percent more likely to die from diabetes.

_Cancer: Whatever the cancer – breast, colon, esophagus, bladder, cervix, uterus, rectum, prostate, leukemia – blacks are less likely than whites to be alive five years after diagnosis. Even skin cancer, which is uncommon in those with darker skin, is more likely to end in death for African-Americans.

_HIV/AIDS: Of the 1.2 million Americans living with HIV, the AIDS virus, in 2003, 47 percent were African-American, even though blacks account for only 12.3 percent of the U.S. population. In 2004, black men were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS at a rate 603.7 percent higher than that of white men. Black women were diagnosed in 2004 at a rate 1,993 percent higher than that of white women.

_Homicide: Though violence isn’t a disease, it is a health issue – one that has a significant impact on life expectancy. Between 1999 and 2003, blacks in Summit County, Ohio, were killed at a rate of 14.6 per 100,000, compared with 2.7 per 100,000 whites.

_Infant mortality: Even though infant mortality declined steeply in the 1980s and ’90s among all races, the disparity between whites and blacks increased because the improvement was greater among whites. In these two decades, infant mortality among whites declined to 5.7 deaths per 1,000 births (a 47.7 percent drop); among blacks, it dropped to 14 deaths per 1,000 births (a 36.9 percent decline). In Summit County, an African-American baby is 3.5 times more likely than a white baby to die in infancy. (more…)

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There is a whole lot more to this article, so please take the time to read it when you have the time.

I think the reason why this article stuck out to me this morning is because when I took my kids to Disney the other day, I saw a middle-aged Black woman with her kids: all of them were overweight. In some cases I have seen three generations of our people who are overweight. This really sadden me because it is we as parents that teach our kids how to take care of themselves (what to eat, exercise). While it is great to read about how the food industry is taking steps to make food more healthy, we cannot depend on THEIR discretion for us. I heard someone suggest a while back that the number one killing instrument in the Black community is not the gun, but kitchen utensils: fork, knife and spoon.