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It is often stated in the Black community: “When the country gets a cold, we get pneumonia.”
The genesis of this saying is unclear, but the inference is not, nor is it inaccurate. Black people suffer more from adverse medical conditions, with poorer outcomes.
Recipe for disaster
At present the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has noted that those with chronic lung disease, moderate to severe asthma, serious heart conditions, those immunocompromised including cancer treatment, severely obese, diabetic, with renal failure, or liver disease are at higher risk for severe illness.
That warning should be clearly heard by the African American community. We are 2.2 times more likely to have diabetes, 20% more likely to have high blood pressure, and 30% more likely to be obese.
The incidence of COPD (lung disease) in our women is 34% higher than in White women. Bottom line, if we acquire the virus, bad things are more likely to happen. That’s pass number one.
SDoH categories
Let us layer onto that more baggage. It is now known that the social determinants of health (SDoH) play as important a role in a person’s health as genetics or medical treatment.
There are, broadly, six SDoH categories: economic stability, physical environment, education, food community and social content and health care systems.
Blacks are adversely affected in this arena. For example, with poorer housing we cannot generally socially isolate at home each in a different wing of the house; we may have six people in a two-bedroom apartment.
Searching for healthy food or using the bus to get to work (if you have a job and going to work), puts one at higher risk of acquiring the infection. Add the health risk factors above and we see a potential recipe for disaster.
Black-White wealth gap
I will separate one out the above noted SDoHs: economic stability, or lack thereof.
Quoting from a Brookings Institute study, “at $171,000, the net worth of a typical White family is nearly 10 times greater than that of a Black family in 2016.
Gaps in wealth between Black and White households reveal the effects of accumulated inequality and discrimination, as well as differences in power and opportunity that can be traced back to this nation’s inception.
Disproportionally affected
Democratic lawmakers noted an apparent lack of racial data that they say is needed to monitor and address disparities in the national response to the coronavirus outbreak.
In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, two lawmakers said comprehensive demographic data on people who are tested or treated for the virus that causes COVID-19 does not exist.
U.S. cities with large Black and Brown populations such as Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee and New Orleans have emerged as hot spots of the coronavirus outbreak.
“This lack of information will exacerbate existing health disparities and result in the loss of lives in vulnerable communities,” the letter warned.
Where does all of this leave us? With pneumonia.
Dr. Oliver Brooks is the president of the National Medical Association.
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