Racial gap in health between whites, blacks remains wide

Despite years of attention to the issue, the racial gap in Americans' health continues, with only a few success stories, federal health officials said yesterday. African Americans die from nearly every major disease or cause at rates higher than white people, especially homicide and HIV, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Blacks also have higher rates of stroke, high blood pressure and many infectious diseases, especially sexually transmitted diseases, the CDC said in its weekly report on disease, which this week focused on black-white health disparities. Officials said more culturally sensitive programs targeted at blacks should be implemented to improve the picture. "We've been talking about the problem, but we haven't done enough in terms of resources and making sure interventions known to be effective are used widely in both populations," said Dr. Ben Truman, associate director of science in the CDC's Office of Minority Health. Higher rates of measles among blacks in the 1970s were erased after vaccination programs focused on inner cities, Truman said. Efforts to curb heart disease and breast cancer have helped lower rates of those diseases in both blacks and whites, but the racial gap persists, he said. Truman said screening for colon and prostate cancer, which are both more lethal among blacks, should be made widely available to everyone, especially African Americans, to diminish rates of those diseases. [more]