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Study: Disparities in care kill 80,000 Blacks

Middle-age black men are dying at nearly twice the rate of white men of a similar age, reflecting lower incomes and poorer access to health care, a study says. But mortality among black infants is dropping. While overall longevity for both black and whites has improved over the past 40 years, the gap between the races has narrowed little, former Surgeon General David Satcher said in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs. Satcher's paper was one of several in the journal, which is devoting most of its March/April issue to the topic of health care discrepancies between races. Elimination of this racial gap would prevent an estimated 83,570 early deaths annually, Satcher said. Some 10,472 of those deaths occurred among black men who were 45 to 54 in 2000, according to research based on a death rate of 1,060 per 100,000 black men in that age group compared with a rate of 503 for white men. In 1960 the rates were 1,625 for black men and 932 for white men in that age group. [more]

Blacks' higher death rates blamed on racial Segregation
The cost of segregation: This 5-part Detroit News series examined the steep prices Metro Detroit blacks and whites pay for their segregated living patterns. African-Americans die at sharply higher rates than whites, a gap caused largely by deep racial segregation and other social factors, studies released Wednesday show. The studies, published together, are the latest to trace racial disparities in health. Their findings have particular resonance in Metro Detroit, which is the nation's most segregated metropolitan area. One of the studies found middle-age black men are dying at nearly twice the rate of white men, primarily because of differences in socio-economic status and access to medical care. The other, by researchers at the University of Michigan and Indiana University, showed segregation is partly to blame. In that study, the researchers tracked changes in black and white deaths from six conditions -- cancer, heart disease, homicide, flu, pneumonia and suicide -- over a 50-year period. "Economics and access to health care do indeed play a large part," said Iris Pita, a retired nurse at Detroit Receiving Hospital. "I've seen places where people didn't even have running water or lights." [more]

Health Disparities Called A 'National Embarrassment' [more]