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June 6th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda TUESDAY, June 5 (HealthDay News) — The gap in life expectancy
between U.S. whites and blacks narrowed between 2003 and 2008, yet
significant disparities remain, a new study finds.
Researchers analyzed data from the U.S. National Vital Statistics
System and found the disparity in life expectancy between whites and
blacks declined by one year.
Specifically, between 2003 and 2008, life expectancy at birth rose from
75.3 years to 76.2 years for white men and from 68.8 to 70.8 years for
black men. For white women, life expectancy rose from 80.3 to 81.2 years
and for black women, it went from 75.7 to 77.5 years.
The improvements reduced the racial gap from 6.5 to 5.4 years among men
and from 4.6 to 3.7 years among women, according to the study in the June
6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The new statistics follow a trend also seen between 1993 and 2003, said
study author Sam Harper, an assistant professor of epidemiology at McGill
University in Montreal.
“It is mostly a good news story for a few reasons. Life expectancy from
2003 to 2008 went up for white men, white women, black men and black
women,” Harper said. “The gap between blacks and whites narrowed for both
men and women by about a year and, at present, the gap is the lowest it’s
ever been.”
However, the good news is tempered by the fact that a significant gap
remains, Harper said. “The life expectancy gap, particularly among men, is
still quite wide. It’s still about 5.5 years between black and white men,
and roughly four years for black and white women. That continues to be a
problem,” he said.
There are multiple explanations for the continuing racial gap in life
expectancy, Harper said. According to the mortality statistics, blacks are
still more likely to die from heart disease, HIV, diabetes and homicide,
while infant mortality rates remain higher among blacks than whites.
And yet, many of those same factors were also factors in narrowing the
gap. From 2003 to 2008, blacks notched improvements in multiple
categories, with death rates from heart disease and HIV markedly
declining.
The statistics also revealed some disheartening information. The gap
narrowed in part because more whites died of “unintentional injury,”
specifically, poisoning. While car crashes have been the main cause of
injury-related deaths in the United States, deaths from auto accidents
remained mostly stable from 2003 to 2008 and there wasn’t a difference
between the races.
Instead, the big difference was seen in poisoning, which Harper and his
colleagues believe is related to overdoses on prescription medications,
such as painkillers. According to the study, poisoning has eclipsed motor
vehicle accidents as the leading cause of unintentional death.
Among those aged 20 to 54, death rates from poisoning shot up by 58
percent for white men and 74 percent for white women, while remaining
relatively steady among blacks.
Dr. David Ansell, senior vice president for clinical affairs and chief
medical officer at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said the
national statistics obscure more worrisome realities.
The first is that life expectancy in the United States is significantly
lower than that of nearly all industrialized nations, and nearly three
years less than Canadian life expectancy.
“If you look at all the industrialized countries, we tend to be 35th or
40th overall,” Ansell said. “In a good year, we are a little bit ahead of
Slovenia. In a bad year, we are behind it. Life expectancy is a problem in
the United States.”
Within the United States, there are also significant differences within
communities. Ansell cited a 2008 study that found a significant life
expectancy gap between Mississippi and wealthier Connecticut.
And things aren’t necessarily headed in the right direction, he added.
“You’ve seen some narrowing overall in the United States, but in the
cities and in some isolated rural areas, the gap has actually has gotten
bigger between blacks and whites,” he said.
In 2000, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ “Healthy
People 2020” set the goal of reducing health disparities between whites
and minorities; by 2012, the goal was to eliminate them.
“When we look at the 25 largest cities across the United States, almost
all of them have gaps that have grown between blacks and whites,” Ansell
said. “We have to ask ourselves, ‘Why do we have this problem in the
U.S.?’ It’s a combination of poverty, racism and a health care system
designed to serve people who have the ability to access the best that our
health system has to offer.”
More information
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has more on health disparities.
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