Health Disparities In African Americans

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The Increasing Health Disparities in the African American Population Abstract The purpose of this research paper is to discuss the problem of the increasing health disparities in African American communities. Several peer reviewed articles were utilized to develop the claim in this paper. My claim is that this growing situation should be classified as a public health problem and measures should be established to solve this problem to help save blacks from dying. These health disparities in the African American community are mainly prevalent due to lack of health insurance, lack of access to healthy restaurants, low amount of African Americans in healthcare, and residing in unsafe environments. However, the various problems described in the…show more content…
African Americans of low income and live in a poor community have a higher risk of dying that Whites of the same category. The fact that the leading cause of death for African Americans males aged 19-25 is homicide is truly alarming that this is a major problem that needs a solution. African Americans are first experiencing health disparities because they have limited healthcare insurance. Currently, Blacks remain significantly more likely to be uninsured compared to Whites. Blacks also have limited healthy food access. Residents of typically low income neighborhoods have to overcome the problem that there are limited healthy food choices near them. There is also a minimal amount of physicians who are African American. Populations such as African Americans are in need of physicians who are understanding and willing to look after their health needs. African Americans are experiencing large levels of health disparities due to the unsafe environments that they live in. Current research on African Americans shows that the problem is getting worse and solutions must be developed to help save the Black…show more content…
The former Surgeon General, David Satcher, and others studied the Black-White mortality gap in 1960 and 2000. By using statistical data from the National Center for Health Statistics for each decade from 1960 through 2000, the authors evaluated U.S. mortality for African Americans. The death rates by age and sex categories for non-Hispanic whites in those same years were used as the standard. The authors examined trends in standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) from 1960 through 2000. The number of excess deaths among African Americans was determined by applying the age-specific mortality rate of whites to the African American population of the same age and calculated the difference between that value and the actual number of deaths (Satcher, Fryer and

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