Racial inequality in life expectancy improving

Posted June 8th, 2012 by James DeWolf Perry
Category: Living consequences Tags: Drugs, Health inequality, Heart disease, HIV, Homicide, Racial inequality

A report in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association concludes that the gap in life expectancy between black and white Americans has improved in recent years.

Racial inequality in health care and health outcomes is one of the most important, and persistent, legacies of our nation’s history of slavery and racial discrimination. On average, black citizens of the Unites States can expect to live several years less than their white counterparts.

However, the racial gap in life expectancy has been narrowing at a surprising rate in recent years. Between 1993 and 2003, the gap declined by about two years for men and one year for women. This new report shows that the gap continued to decline between 2003 and 2008, narrowing by about another year for both men and women.

This latest data means that the black-white life expectancy gap now stands at about 5.4 years for men, and 3.7 years for women. ((For comparative purposes, all figures are for non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black men and women.)) It should go without saying that the remaining difference is still profoundly disturbing, and it’s hard to imagine a more compelling case for not being patient while change comes slowly: while progress slowly accretes, millions upon millions of Americans are still facing, on average, 4.5 fewer years on this Earth.

Nonetheless, this trend represents a measurable gain in years of life for black Americans, and it’s important to understand the causes of this improvement. The authors of this study have analyzed causes of death and have determined that the last fifteen years have seen major gains for black Americans in death rates due to heart disease and HIV. For the first ten years, an improvement in the homicide rate for black males was also a major contributing factor, but after 2003, homicide rates did not continue to improve significantly. Instead, the most recent five years saw a narrowing in the rates of death due to unintentional injury, which the authors believe might be the result of dramatic rises in unintentional injury deaths due to recreational drug use (painkillers and opiates are particularly suspected), which have been disproportionately killing white people.

If these are the primary reasons for the improving gap in life expectancy, what are the primary causes of the remaining disparity? The authors of this study conclude that the primary causes are gaps in mortality due to heart disease, diabetes, homicides, HIV, and infant mortality. These, then, are the disproportionate killers of black Americans, and reducing these disparities, as well as pinpointing their underlying causes, should be the primary focus of efforts in this area.