Some 1.6 MILLION more excess deaths among African Americans compared to white people since 2000

The disparity between white and black death rates has been exposed by a new study.

Researchers from Yale and the University of Massachusetts found that between 1999 and 2020, black Americans had 1.63 million excess deaths (the difference between the expected and actual number of deaths) over white Americans.

With the skyrocketing number of deaths during the Covid pandemic, particularly among Black Americans, two decades of progress have erased the gap between black and white death rates.

Structural racism, leading to police and gun violence and living in poorer areas, greater barriers to health care and higher rates of heart disease, cancer, and infant and maternal deaths are to blame.

The skyrocketing number of deaths during the Covid pandemic, particularly among black Americans, wiped out two decades of progress in closing the gap between black and white death rates

The country had made progress in reducing the black death rate from 1999 to 2011, but that stalled between 2011 and 2019

Historically, black Americans are less likely to have access to health care, worsening their outcomes for any disease.

They are more likely to live in poorer communities, which in turn means they are more likely to be exposed to drugs and alcohol and caught up in gang violence.

About 26 black Americans die every day from gun violence, and they are 10 times more likely than white Americans to die from gun homicide.

In the US, black adults are nearly twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes and also 30 percent more likely to die from heart disease than non-Hispanic whites.

Black families with less money also lead to poorer nutrition and consumption of fewer fruits and vegetables.

Black Americans also have less access to condoms, which means a higher risk of STIs.

The country had made progress in reducing the black death rate from 1999 to 2011, but that stalled between 2011 and 2019.

The higher death rate between 1999 and 2020 represented a cumulative loss of more than 80 million life years compared to whites.

The researchers said the study, published Tuesday in JAMAshould be a ‘call to action’ for policy makers to address ‘structural racism, unmet social needs and systemic bias’.

They used national U.S. death certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as annual life expectancy by five-year age group from the National Center for Health Statistics to estimate excess deaths.

The higher death rates among black people don’t have to do so much with genetic factors, but rather with the long-term discrimination they’ve been subjected to, said Clyde Yancy, author of the study and chief of cardiology at Northwestern University.

Black neighborhoods that were considered too “high risk” for investments like mortgages in the 1930s still have less money and higher rates of illness, he said.

Previously delineated zip codes also had more Covid infections and deaths.

Dr. Yancy said, “It’s very clear that we have an uneven distribution of health. We’re talking about the freedom to be healthy.’

Early deaths are due to higher rates of heart disease, cancer and infant mortality.

Heart disease in both sexes and cancer in men were the largest drivers of differences in excess deaths, the study said.

When Covid hit, black Americans also experienced “persistently higher barriers to health care, a higher prevalence of multimorbidity and poorer average health status.”

Herman Taylor, author of the study and director of the cardiovascular research institute at Morehouse School of Medicine, said: “The study is hugely important for about 1.63 million reasons.

“Real lives are lost. Real families lack parents and grandparents. Babies and their mothers die. We’ve been shouting that message for decades.’

A similar study found that racial and ethnic disparities cost the US more than $421 million in 2018 due to medical costs, lost productivity and premature death.

In 2021, the life expectancy of a non-Hispanic White American at birth was 76 years, while that of a non-Hispanic Black American was only 71 years.

This is partly because non-Hispanic black children are 2.5 times more likely to miss their first birthday, compared to white newborns.

And non-Hispanic black mothers are more than three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related problem.

A pregnant woman in New York spoke of making the difficult decision to give birth at home during the coronavirus pandemic because she feared “hospitals aren’t safe for black women” like herself.

Black women generally have the highest maternal mortality rates in the US.