Blck men dying earlier than whites, report says

Unequal health care resulting in higher mortality rates
WASHINGTON - Middle-age black men are dying at nearly twice the rate of white men of a similar age, reflecting lower incomes and poorer access to health care, a study says. But mortality among black infants is dropping. While overall longevity for both black and whites has improved over the past 40 years, the gap between the races has narrowed little, former Surgeon General David Satcher said in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs. Satcher’s paper was one of several in the journal, which is devoting most of its March/April issue to the topic of health care discrepancies between races.
Thousands of deaths could be prevented
Elimination of this racial gap would prevent an estimated 83,570 early deaths annually, Satcher said. Some 10,472 of those deaths occurred among black men who were 45 to 54 in 2000, according to research based on a death rate of 1,060 per 100,000 black men in that age group compared with a rate of 503 for white men.
In 1960 the rates were 1,625 for black men and 932 for white men in that age group. One reason for the differences is that gains in health care access generally have not included black men unless they were older or disabled, Satcher said. For example, when Medicare became law, the average black man did not live long enough to become eligible, he said. Other factors include the relatively low incomes of black men compared with whites, a rise in gun-related deaths among blacks, their disproportionately high death rate from AIDS, and higher rates of heart disease and diabetes, Satcher said.