Black American Male: Endangered Species

An endangered species is a population of organisms which is facing a high risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters. Studies have shown that African-American males have the shortest lifespan of any group of people in the United States. Consider that racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care persist even when income, health insurance and access to care are accounted for.  Low performance on a range of health indicators—such as infant mortality, life expectancy, prevalence of chronic disease, and insurance coverage—reveal differences between racial and ethnic minority populations and their white counterparts. Infants born to black women are 1.5 to 3 times more likely to die than those born to women of other races/ethnicities Cancer is the second leading cause of death for most racial and ethnic minorities. Black American men are more than twice as likely to die from prostate cancer than Whites Americans .

Health care disparities in the United States are creating  endangered “species” when observing the healthcare consequences for Black and Brown Americans. Health care disparity is defined as  population-specific differences in the presence of disease, health outcomes, quality of health care and access to health care services that exist across racial and ethnic groups.

 African Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives are twice as likely to have diabetes as white individuals; diabetes rates among Hispanics are 1.5 times higher than those for whites, are least likely to have access to the newest technological and pharmaceutical advancements for the treatment of diabetes.

I recently published a book "Disparity of Healthcare for Black Senior Citizens" available on Amazon in which I suggested an immediate solution for better Healthcare for Black Senior Citizens