May 17, 2023 – Black Americans have a significantly higher premature mortality rate than whites, with 1.63 million “excess deaths” amongst blacks over twenty years, in response to a brand new study published in JAMA.
According to the study, black Americans lost a complete of greater than 80 million years from 1999 to 2020 in comparison with whites.
The higher death rates are largely resulting from increased rates of heart disease, cancer and child mortality, the study says.
“The study is hugely important for about 1.63 million reasons,” said Dr. Herman Taylor, creator of the study and director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute on the Morehouse School of Medicine in KFF Health News.
“Real lives are being lost. Real families are missing their parents and grandparents,” Taylor said. “Babies and their mothers are dying. We've been shouting that message for decades.”
Another creator of the study, Dr. Clyde Yancy, attributed the disparities to the country's centuries of discrimination and the resulting inequalities in education and employment opportunities for generations of blacks. Yancy is chief of cardiology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.
The economic cost of health inequality for racial and ethnic minorities, including blacks, was at the very least $421 billion in 2018, partly resulting from medical expenses and premature deaths, says another study In JAMA“And the economic burden of health disparities for adults without a four-year college degree was $940 billion and $978 billion, respectively, according to two data sources.”
The CDC reported that in 2021, life expectancy for non-Hispanic white Americans was 76 years; for non-Hispanic black Americans, it was 71 years.