All Articles Tagged "African-American health"
Blacks More Willing Than Whites to Spend Big to Preserve Life
(CNN) — Imagine you’re in the hospital with cancer. Would you rather spend everything you have to potentially live longer, or just forgo the costly medical treatment? Your answer to that question might be influenced by your race. A study published Tuesday in the journal Cancer finds that 80% of African Americans were willing to spend all their resources to extend life, but for white people the number is just 54%. Other minority groups landed between those two groups, with 69% of Hispanics and 72% of Asians saying they were willing to spend everything on extending life.
8 Important Statistics that Black America Needs To Recognize Now
by Anthony Jerrod
Black History Month- a time for members of various ethnicities to celebrate the valiant efforts and deep democratic struggles of people of African descent and a time to reflect on the strength of a courageous people who continually clothe themselves with love and justice in the face of monolithic adversity, resistance, malevolent acts, and attempts to diminish and eradicate black beauty, black intelligence and black potentiality. It is also, as Carter G. Woodson once expressed in the Journal of Negro History in October of 1927, a time not only to explore African civilization, history, art, philosophy and anthropology but also to investigate the social, economic and cultural problems of the Negro.
Indeed, as we look to continue to bequeath the rich tradition and heritage of our predecessors, it is imperative that the extraordinary progress, outstanding achievements and inventions and beautiful legacy of people of African descent be explicitly and unequivocally told to present and future generations. Similarly, as we embark on communicating the whole truth, it is also essential that we persist to focus on areas where improvement is needed.
To be sure, these areas for improvement exist relative to every ethnicity and are not solely confined to African-Americans. Moreover, the associated statistics are not purposed to bring negative culpability and condemnation but rather to shed light on disproportionate yet potentially alarming trends. Though not all-inclusive, the following eight areas do warrant attention, renewed thinking, civil discourse and solutions to help ensure that robust progress is not impeded.
HIV
According to a recent study published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in February 2011, “Although blacks make up only 13.6 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 50.3 percent of all diagnosed cases of HIV. Additionally, the rate of HIV diagnosis among black men is eight times that of whites and two times that of Hispanics, and the rate for black women is 19 times that of whites and four times that of Hispanics.”
Red Ink Blots Black AIDS Day
(Huffington Post) — Last week, the Federal Reserve chairman gave a stern warning to Congress not to play politics with an impending vote to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. ”It’s not something you want to play around with — the United States would be forced into a position of defaulting on its debt,” Mr. Ben Bernanke said at the National Press Club. “And the implications of that for our financial system, for our fiscal policy, for our economy would be catastrophic.” On February 7, National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, I’m wondering where is our Ben Bernanke. The tenor of fiscal debate on Capitol Hill is not only worrying investors, but also the millions of ordinary Americans who rely on government assistance to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table, medicine in the cabinet, and help coping with job loss or disabilities. For lawmakers, potential market instabilities garner attention, but what about the catastrophic effects of deep health and human service cuts, stalled or threatened health care reforms, and neglected Social Security Administration, Medicare, and Medicaid systems upon which tens of millions of vulnerable Americans depend?
Federal Report Highlights Racial Disparities in Health
(NY Times) — Whites in the United States die of drug overdoses more often than other ethnic groups. Blacks are hit proportionately harder by AIDS, strokes and heart disease. And American Indians tend to die in car crashes. To shed more light on the ills of America’s poor — and occasionally its rich — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday released its first report detailing racial disparities in a broad array of health problems. While some are well known, others have had little attention; there were also a few surprises. The agency did not delve into why suffering is so disproportionate, other than to note the obvious: that the poor, the uninsured and the less educated tend to live shorter, sicker lives. (Some illnesses were also broken down by income level, by region, by age or by sex, but the main focus was on racial differences.)
Hospital Closings on the Rise in Minority Neighborhoods
(The Network Journal) — As the new GOP-lead Congress examines possible repeal of President Obama’s health insurance policy, many citizens are faced with yet another hurdle regarding health care. Americaswire.org recently published an article which stated that a growing number of hospitals are closing or moving out of minority neighborhoods, leaving huge voids in health care services, especially trauma treatment, for residents of these communities. Award-winning reporter, Marjorie Valbrun, reports that hospitals have closed or face closure in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, St. Louis, New York, Washington and parts of New Jersey. In fact, Detroit has lost more than 1,200 hospital beds since 1998 because of closures and has no public hospital.
Fact Sheet: Health Disparities by Race and Ethnicity
(New American Media) — Seventy-nine percent of African Americans had health coverage in 2009 compared to 88 percent of white Americans. A total of 16.6 percent of African Americans aged 18 years and over do not have a regular source of health care. Nearly half (46 percent) of nonelderly black adults who do not have insurance report having one or more chronic health conditions. Thirteen percent of African Americans of all ages report they are in fair or poor health. Adult obesity rates for African Americans are higher than those for whites in nearly every state of the nation—37 percent of men and nearly 50 percent of women are obese. African Americans have higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease than other groups. Nearly 15 percent of African Americans have diabetes compared with 8 percent of whites.
Reducing The Death Rate of Black Babies
(LA Times) — Thirteen-year-old Jeremy Thicklin is on a mission to teach his friends how to prevent African-American babies from dying. The slender eighth-grader at Roosevelt Middle School was one of 212 volunteers who graduated Saturday from Community Voice, a five-week program teaching them how diet, exercise and behavior can reduce the high death rate among African-American infants. African-American babies die more than twice as often before their first birthday as do non-Hispanic whites, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Five Sleep Tips For Tired Madames
Are black women getting enough sleep at night? Adult sleep needs can range from 7 to a whopping 9 hours at night according to the National Sleep Foundation. In the NSF’s 2010 Sleep In America poll African-Americans reported needing 7 hours and 5 minutes of sleep each night to perform, however Blacks polled got the least amount of sleep — 6 hours and 14 minutes — on weekdays.
Breast Cancer Survival May Not Be Tied To Race
According to a new study, race is not necessarily a factor in breast-cancer related deaths among black women.
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