(BlackDoctor.org) – It shouldn’t come as a surprise that there are several deadly diseases that strike Blacks harder and more often than they do other groups, particularly whites.
What are the ones affecting us the most? And more importantly, how can we better fight back?
First, here are the top seven diseases to keep in mind…
• Diabetes. 60% more common in Blacks than in whites. Blacks are up to 2.5 times more likely to suffer a limb amputation and up to 5.6 times more likely to suffer kidney disease than other people with diabetes.
• Asthma. Blacks are three times more likely to die of asthma than whites.
• Sarcoidosis. Deaths from lung scarring — sarcoidosis — are 16 times more common among Blacks than among whites. The disease recently killed former NFL star Reggie White at age 43.
• Lung Cancer. Despite lower tobacco exposure, Black men are 50% more likely than white men to get lung cancer.
• Strokes. Strokes kill 4 times more 35- to 54-year-old Black Americans than white Americans. Blacks have nearly twice the
first-time stroke risk of whites.
• High Blood Pressure. Blacks develop high blood pressure earlier in life — and with much higher blood pressure levels — than whites. Nearly 42% of Black men and more than 45% of Black women aged 20 and older have high blood pressure.
• Cancer. Cancer treatment is equally successful for all races. Yet Black men have a 40% higher cancer death rate than white men. African American women have a 20% higher cancer death rate than white women.
Why These Disparities?
Genes. Genes definitely play a role. So does the environment in which people live, socioeconomic status — and, yes, racism, says Clyde W. Yancy, MD, associate dean of clinical affairs and medical director for heart failure/transplantation at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
Unique Cultural Issues. Yancy says that all humans have the same physiology, are vulnerable to the same illnesses, and respond to the same medicines. Naturally, diseases and responses to treatment do vary from person to person. But, he says, there are unique issues that affect Black Americans.
“We must recognize there are some arbitrary issues that are present in the way we practice medicine and dole out health care,” Yancy tells WebMD. “It forces us to think very carefully about the very volatile issue of race and what race means. At the end of the day, it is more likely an issue of socioeconomics and political issues of bias as well as physiologic and genetic issues.
Agreeing with Yancy is LeRoy M. Graham Jr., MD, a pediatric lung expert who serves on the American Lung Association’s board of directors, is associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, and serves as staff physician for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
“I just think we as physicians need to get more impassioned,” says Graham. “There are health disparities. But we as doctors need to spend more time recognizing these disparities and addressing them — together with our patients — on a very individual level.”
Black Americans & Lung Disease
A 2005 report from the American Lung Association shows that Black Americans suffer far more lung disease than whites do:
• Blacks have more asthma than any racial or ethnic group in America. And Blacks are 3 times more likely to die of asthma than whites.
• Blacks are 3 times more likely to suffer sarcoidosis than white Americans. The lung-scarring disease is 16 times more deadly for Blacks than for whites.
• Blacks are 50% more likely to get lung cancer than white American men.
• Blacks are half as likely to get flu and pneumonia vaccinations as white Americans.
Why? “There are a couple of reasons for this,” Graham says. “One is that 71% of Blacks versus 58% of white Americans live in communities that violate federal air pollution standards. When we look at Blacks in terms of demographic distribution, they are more likely to be located near, if not next to, transportation corridors, and to places where the air is drawn.”
