SOUTHERN BIRTH CITED FOR BLACKS’ HIGHER DEATH RATE
Blacks are more likely than whites to die of cardiovascular disease because so many of them are born in the South, not because of their race, a study concludes.
Experts have long noticed that black Americans suffer more diseases of the circulatory system — mainly heart attacks, strokes and high blood pressure — than do whites.
They assumed that racial differences in genetic susceptibility to disease, in eating and living habits and perhaps in access to health care accounted for this. The new study, published in Thursday’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, challenges some of these long-held ideas.
It found that when broken down by birthplace, blacks differ far more from each other than they do from whites.
Among New Yorkers born in the Northeast, blacks and whites have nearly identical risks of these ills. However, black New Yorkers who were born in the South have a sharply higher risk, and black New Yorkers born in the Caribbean have a significantly lower risk.
The life expectancy of black people in the United States is lower than that of whites. More cardiovascular disease — the leading cause of death for all Americans — is the single most important reason.
The latest study was based on death records from 1988 through 1992 and 1990 census data.
“Southern-born blacks are responsible for the excess mortality among blacks,” said Dr. Michael Alderman, a co-author of the study.
Just why those born in the South have such an increased risk is unclear, although Alderman speculated that it probably has to do with eating habits learned early in life.
An editorial by Dr. Richard Gillum of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention speculated that the Southern lifestyle, smoking, a high-fat diet and urban stress combine “to produce the worst of all cardiovascular worlds.”
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