Healthcare Facts

Infant Mortality:

1. Black infants are nearly two-and-one-half times more likely than while infants to die before their first birthdays.

Disease-Related Risk Factors:

1. More than one out of every three black people are plagued by hypertension; this is the highest rate in the world Hypertension can damage kidneys and lead to stroke, heart failure, and heart attack when it is not treated.
2. Of al men ages 20 and older, 36.4% of African-American have high blood pressure, compared to 25.6% of White men.
3. Nearly 70% of Black adults between the ages of 20 and 74 are overweight; more than half of ALL Black women are overweight.

Prevalence of Disease:

1. Black women are close to 80% more likely to die of a stroke than White women, and 30% more likely to die of a heart attack.
2. More than 2.2. million African-Americans have diabetes.
3. African-Americans are 13% of the nation's population and account for 56% annually of new HIV infections. A quarter of these new infections are among people under 25 years of age.
4. Two-thirds of new AIDS cases among teens are Black, yet they are only 15% of the national teen population.
5. African-American and Latino children make up more than 80% of pediatric AIDS cases.
6. Black women are diagnosed with AIDS at a rate 25 times that of White women.
7. Black people are 10% more likely to suffer from cancer and 30% more likely to die from cancer than Whites.

Healthcare:

1. Nearly one-third - 32% - of African-Americans do not have a regular doctor. By contrast, only 20% of White Americans do not have a regular doctor.
2. Close to 1.8 million African-American children in the U.S. do not have health insurance.

Healthy Living:

1. Nationally, half of all Black neighborhoods lack access to a full-service grocery store or supermarket.
2. Nationwide, predominantly White neighborhoods have four times more supermarkets than predominantly Black neighborhoods.
3. When there is a supermarket in a community, studies show that there is a 32% increase in fresh fruit and vegetable consumption.
4. Fifty percent of Black adults do not participate in light, moderate, or vigorous physical activity regularly as opposed to 35% of White adults.
5. White youths are 14% more likely to engage in regular exercise than African-American youths.
6. There are 1.7 acres of park space for every 1,000 people in African-American neighborhoods in Los Angeles, compared with 31.8 acres in White neighborhood.

From the book Covenant with Black America.