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AFRICAN AMERICAN HEALTH DISPARITY
HIGHLIGHTED FACTS:
1. Only one third of 15-year-old African American males from urban areas can survive to age 65. They face lower probabilities
of survival to age 45 than men nationwide face to age 65.
(Geronimus, Arline T., The Health of Urban African American Men: Excess Mortality and Causes of Death. Preliminary paper for
November 1998 Aspen Institute Roundtable on Comprehensive Community Initiatives.)
2. An estimated 83,570 excess deaths each year could be prevented in the United States if the African American mortality gap
could be eliminated.
(David Satcher, George E. Fryer, Jr., Jessica McCann, Adewale Troutman, Steven H. Woolf and George Rust, What If We Were Equal?
A Comparison Of The Black-White Mortality Gap In 1960 And 2000, Health Affairs, 24, no. 2 (2005): 459-464, 2005.)
3. A black male will die before just about anyone else, man or woman, of any race.
(What About Men? Exploring the Inequities in Minority Men’s Health, WK Kellogg, Community Voices, CV:HCU4120, Item
#540)
4. The average life expectancy of African American males is 65.2 years (U.S. Congress, 1991: 20) - not long enough to collect
social security or Medicare.
5. An African American male has a 1 in 29 chance of being murdered, compared to rates for Black females (1 in 132), White
males (1 in 179) and White females (1 in 495).
(Men Health Network: Presentation to National Institutes of Health, May 12, 2003 - Megan Smith Jean Bonhomme, MD, MPH, Francisco
Semiao, MPH, CEHS, Susannah Fox.)
6. African American men are less likely to receive surgery for glaucoma, to be prescribed a potentially life-saving drug for
ischemic stroke, or to have mental health conditions diagnosed; and, they are more likely to be denied insurance authorization
for emergency treatment than are European men.
(1st World Congress on Men Health, November 2, 2001, Vienna, Austria, Sex & Gender Matter -From Boys to Men: The Future
of Men Health, Proceedings & Abstracts, page 15.)
7. One in 14 African American children has a parent in state or federal prison. Research confirms that children whose parents
have been incarcerated experience a range of negative health consequences.
(Jeremy Travis, Amy L. Solomon, and Michelle Waul, From Prison to Home: The Dimensions and Consequences of Prisoner Reentry,
Research Monograph of the Justice Policy Center of The Urban Institute, June 2001.)
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