A new report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta supports the notion that racial disparities in health — in particular for African Americans — are growing wider when compared to whites and other ethnic/racial groups.
The data is reported in the new “CDC Health Disparities and Inequalities Report — United States, 2011.” Although some of the areas where disparities exist are well known, many of the new findings have received little attention in the past and proffer some interesting findings.
It is well know that African Americans are disproportionately impacted by stroke, AIDS and heart disease, more than any other ethnic group in the United States. However the repost reinforced that children born to African American women are more than three times likely to die in infancy than women of other races.
Of major significance was the observation that rates of preventable hospitalizations increase as incomes decrease and that African Americans have double the rate of preventable hospitalizations compared to whites. Moreover, African Americans, regardless of sexual orientation, have higher rates of new infection with the AIDS virus than do whites, and according to data the situation is exacerbating.
A complete copy of the “CDC Health Disparities and Inequalities Report — United States, 2011”, is available at www.cdc.gov/mmwr
Torrance Stephens, phd is author of Blog https://rawdawgb.blogspot.com
