History's Burden
After decades of neglect, an academic research agenda is being built around health disparities
By Ronald Roach
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It's been described as the leading civil rights issue of the day. The persistence of racial disparities in health outcomes, such as mortality rates from cancer and heart disease, weighs more heavily on African Americans in comparison to Whites. For example, the prevalence of diabetes in African Americans is approximately 70 percent higher than Whites. For men and women combined, African Americans have a cancer death rate about 35 percent higher than that for Whites. African American women develop breast cancer less often than White women, but have a higher mortality rate. African American women have higher cervical cancer death rates than White women. The incidence rate for lung cancer in African American men is about 50 percent higher than in White men and the death rate is about 27 percent higher. The prostate cancer mortality rate for African American men is more than twice that of White men.
