RACIAL DISPARITIES LEAD to preventable deaths. According to a study issued by the American Journal of Public Health, reduced access to health care accounts for some but not all of the “more than 886,000 deaths [that] could have been prevented from 1991 to 2000 if African Americans had received the same care as whites.” The study found that “5 times as many lives can be saved by correcting the disparities [in care between whites and blacks] than in developing new treatments.”
The authors of the study emphasize that “this is not an argument against science. . . . This is an argument that there are therapies out there that are not new that people just don’t get.”
“Access to care is a big factor. African Americans and Hispanics are much more likely to be uninsured and underinsured and underserved. So a great part of it is really focusing on how do we get prevention programs, intervention programs [and] treatment programs to people in underserved communities?”
