The Gap Between Black and White Mortality Is Narrowing

While black Americans still face worse health outcomes and suffer earlier mortality than white Americans, a new report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states that the life expectancy gap between blacks and whites is narrowing.  “Blacks are catching up,” Samuel Preston, a demographer at the University of Pennsylvania, told The New York Times. “The gap is now the narrowest it has been since the beginning of the 20th century, and that’s really good news.” As it stands, black Americans can expect to live until age 76, while white Americans are likely to live until age 79, on average. There's no one factor responsible for African-American longevity gains, but a constellation of public health initiatives seems to have had an effect. There's also plenty of room for improvement in the wake of the 1980s and 90s, when deaths from homicides, AIDS and the crack epidemic drove down overall life expectancy for African-Americans as a group. The black community is living longer... Health gains in the black community are mostly responsible for the narrowing gap, according to the report's authors. They found that infant morality, teen pregnancy and smoking rates have all fallen since the early aughts, although those numbers still lag behind the infant mortality, teen pregnancy and smoking rates for white Americans.  And despite headlines that suggest the opposite, homicide has fallen significantly among black men, from a high of 78 ...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news