Image: Wavebreak Media

Research published in the journal Health Affairs finds that white American women with a college education have a life expectancy that’s 10.3 years longer than black women with only a high school education. There were similar findings for men: white males with a college education usually live 14.2 years longer than black men who only have a high school diploma.

New American Media took a closer look at the research, which found that even among those of the same race, where there’s an education gap, there’s also a big longevity gap.

“Although blacks have added years slightly overall, among those with the lowest education, longevity for African American men is stuck at the average life expectancy the United States reached in 1954,” the site reports.  ”[B]lack women linger at the 1962 level.”

The reasons for the disparity are many. Those with higher education make more money working at better jobs, know how to better cope with stress and live healthier lives. With increasing numbers of African Americans getting a college degree, we look forward to the day when those longevity findings will increase for the black population.

However, there are some things that blacks can do irrespective of education level to improve the likelihood of living longer. This story from the Toledo Blade discusses the anecdotal increase of vegetarianism in the black community. But some of those financial issues discussed in the research come up here.

“If a family can buy a pack of bologna cheaper than a pound of bing cherries, they’ll go for the bologna to feed their family,” said one vegetarian quoted in the story, Cynthia Snodgrass, who changed her diet for health reasons. “There’s a way to build a vegetarian kitchen cost effectively, but it takes time, patience, and creativity.”

Although the racial gaps in many areas of life are closing slightly in the U.S., research says that there is still a significant gap in black life expectancy compared to that of our white counterparts. In a newly released Health Services Research study conducted by UCLA, blacks continue to live shorter lives than whites in every state in the U.S. on average, as white females live five years longer than black females and white men live seven years longer than black males.

As a part of the university’s study, the disparities are broken down by state and the average life expectancy years in between the two races. New Mexico, with the smallest disparity, has a gap of 3.76 years for men and 2.45 years for women as the average life span difference. The nation’s capital, Washington D.C., has the largest life expectancy gap, with white females living 8.55 years longer than black females and a shocking 13.77 years between the lives of the average black and white males living in the District.

The discouraging study concludes that eliminating disparities in states with the largest African-American population would impact these numbers drastically, a positive solution for the following 10 U.S. states where over 58 percent of the country’s blacks reside: New York, California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Maryland, Missouri and Louisiana. In contrast, states like Kentucky, West Virginia, Nevada, Oklahoma and Washington reported smaller year gaps in life expectancy, but coincidentally, these smaller numbers were not the result of blacks with longer life span, but due to whites with shorter life spans than the national average.

With the national average life expectancy being 74.79 years for white men and 67.66 years for black men and 79.84 years for white women in comparison to 74.64 years for black women, it is clear that the statistical odds of living longer than whites in many states seems bleak.

Various factors have led to these figures that work against our community as a whole, as well as the quality of life. Experts note that key factors impact the life span of the average American, which include accessibility to health care, HIV/AIDS, homicide, obesity, diabetes and other health and life risks that are statistically proven to be disproportionately more present in the black community.

According to the study, the accessibility to health care plays a major role, stating:

“Federal and state health policies that simply concentrate on the black–white difference in a geographic region may miss important opportunities to improve overall population health or significantly reduce disparity at the national level… Blacks make up a disproportionate percentage of the low-income, Medicaid-eligible population, and we found that Massachusetts and New York, two states where black populations have longer-than-expected life expectancy, are also the states that have expanded Medicaid coverage.”

Knowing that these factors play a key role in our life span more so than they do for others in America, we must be conscious of our health and well-being in order to live more healthy and longer. That includes everything from evaluating our eating habits and our lifestyle choices, being aware of our bodies inside and out, having access to healthcare, helping slow violent crimes in our communities and a lot more.

Are we doing enough as a community to live longer? How can we combat this issue with our lifestyles to close the gap?

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(DC Centric) – People in D.C. are expected to live longer these days than a decade ago, and the gap between whites and blacks is shrinking.  This is according to a new study released yesterday by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which examined average life expectancies across 3,148 counties and jurisdictions.

Read More…

By B. Hutson

The Great Recession didn’t just impede on our annual incomes and job security—for nearly two decades, the expected life span of black and white Americans was steadily narrowing, but a swift reverse has occurred and now the expected life span is widening. Some experts attribute this unexpected gap to none other than the recession, reports the Huffington Post.

According to preliminary figures from the Centers for Disease Control, for all Americans, the average life expectancy nudged up to reach 78 years and two months. But blacks saw no improvement in life expectancy, which remains at 74 years and three months.

How did the recession toy with life expectancy? Well, two years after its official end, black unemployment remains at 16.1 percent compared to the 8 percent of white Americans unable to find work. The stress that can come from job loss and being unable to find employment may explain the new life expectancy gap experts say.

“We should regard this one year data as an alarm, Kofi Kondwani, an assistant professor in community health and preventive medicine at the Morehouse School of Medicine, told HuffPo. “In a country where there are already multiple measures of health that show vast differences between the black and white population, any increase in the life expectancy gap may be an indicator that our efforts to deal with health disparities may not be working.”

Federal researchers who compiled the data note that there can be a myriad of factors besides black unemployment that could affect life expectancy. It’s suggested that looking at data along demographic lines could reveal those other factors. Social forces associated with the recession, such as loosing a home to foreclosure, could be assumed to affect the different groups of the population in particular ways. But for now, the go-to-factor remains to be the stress that comes from unemployment and worries about the ability to pay bills.

Life in these United States is tough enough without being badgered by government reports that give us both good news and not-so-good news. The latest such report released a few weeks ago by the Centers for Disease Control announced just how long young Americans can expect to live.

The good news: babies born in 2009 are expected to live longer than ever – till the ripe old age of 78.  Reportedly, improved medical treatments, vaccinations, and public health campaigns against smoking are having a beneficial effect on life spans. As such, American life expectancy is now longer – by several months – than projections calculated in 2008.

The not-so-good news: life expectancy for African-Americans didn’t rise at all. In fact, based on CDC findings, white babies born in 2009 can expect to celebrate a birthday in 2087, but black babies overall are expected to live only until 2082. On average, blacks will die nearly four and a half years earlier due to a range of health disparities and higher rates of homicide.

With this CDC report now on file, we identified several “exceptions” to the rule of black life expectancy—people who have stretched their lives over the course of three different centuries.

Daisey Bailey

113 years, 342 days

(March 30, 1896 – March 7, 2010 – verified)

Until her death, Bailey was the oldest living African American; however, there were conflicting reports as to whether she was the fourth or the fifth oldest person in the world. Born and raised in Watertown, TN, Bailey worked on a plantation there. In 1910, at age 14, she married Will Ready, who died in the 1930s. She also outlived a second husband—and all four of her children.

Secret to longevity: praying, loving, forgiving and eating lots of vegetables. She also drank whiskey.

(NYT) — As in the rest of the United States, women in New York City tend to live longer than men. But the gap is wider in New York, according to a new report from the city’s health department.

Female New Yorkers can expect to live to 82, males to 76, the researchers say. The Census Bureau’s latest projection puts the nationwide figures at 81 and 76.

Read More…

According to the Associated Press, Japanese women are expected to live almost 86 1/2 years, topping the world longevity ratings for the 25th straight year, the government reported Monday…

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