Skip to main content

“The vulnerability of African-Americans to the coronavirus is a national emergency.” The Economist, May 30, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic, aided and abetted by racial disparities from the 50+ year chronic disease epidemic, has harmed blacks much more than whites.  Who is really surprised, crocodile tears aside, that blacks are dying at much higher rates than whites from the virus?   

As The Economist implies, African-American health has been worse than white health for centuries--but do whites really even care?  Major investments have been made in government programs, but the dismal outcomes remain.  

When it comes to public health, it’s not about what you say you care about, or what you try to do--it’s about the results. 

Exhibit A that it can be done: we reduced smoking by ⅔ in the course of more than five decades of hard policy and program work.  Smoking among black men declined even more than among white men--and by 2008 black teens smoked at half the rate of whites.

What will we do about our inactivity & unhealthy nutrition epidemic--which is much bigger, costlier & deadlier than the COVID-19 pandemic?  It damages African-, Native-, and Latino-American health disproportionately, every year--as well as harming whites on a massive scale.  

Let’s please not bother with happy-talk (yes, including The Economist magazine itself), unless we are committed to moving the needle dramatically. When it comes to health, words do not speak--sustained actions do.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is it a “Miracle Drug”?...if it Costs a Fortune and Creates Lifelong Dependency...&...Saggy Faces!?

[It’s been a while since our last blog post.  A lot has happened since– including some “miracles” ! So we’re going to do two posts in a row…] Normally we should all be happy about miracle drugs... shouldn't we ? Yes, there is lots of upside from taking semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy), tirzepatide (Montjaro)--and upcoming new, even-more-miraculous drugs TBD:  losing huge amounts of weight quickly, a much lower risk of diabetes–and probably less heart disease and other chronic conditions as well.  But what if the “miracle” requires:   $200-300/week, with a lifetime cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars…  a drug that you can never quit…because if you stop taking it, you gain back all the weight it helped you lose–not to mention the chronic diseases which the drugs kept at bay… and it leaves your face (and the rest of your skin?) sagging …    (plus, it’s so new at such high dosages– who knows what happens after years of use…? ) No doubt, in spit...
4 comments
Read more

Smoking out the pessimism on changing health habits: adult smoking is down 2/3 !!

Only 14% of US adults smoke now --compared to 42% just over 50 years ago. That's a 2/3 decline. Yet many of us think that we can't change Americans' unhealthy activity & nutrition habits. Why has smoking gone down so dramatically, while obesity & diabetes keep going up?  Well, we actually seriously tried, as a society & a political system, to reduce smoking.  We have not seriously tried to reverse obesity & diabetes. How did we reduce smoking so much?  Here is my grading of how poorly we are doing, at using strategies that worked against smoking--to fight inactivity & unhealthy nutrition: - Broad & profound awareness of seriousness of problem  (D) - Strong physical & health education programs in schools  (D) - Hard-hitting, pervasive public information campaigns  (F) - Very strong government health warnings  (D) - Large insurance premium discounts for healthy behavior  (D) - Cost-effective behavior cessati...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chronic disease at core of Big Apple COVID-19 deaths

A recent summary of COVID-19-related deaths in New York City  confirms the much higher mortality risks among those with underlying health conditions.  Among the >80% of fatalities for which underlying condition status was known, only 0.8% of  those dying  had no chronic disease.  As we know from prior reports, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease are underlying conditions very frequently associated with novel coronavirus deaths. Furthermore, chronic diseases make up the vast majority of "underlying conditions" among those who die.  (See earlier blog post.)  This pandemic has been another wake-up call on the continued dangers of failing to prevent the widespread inactivity & unhealthy nutrition leading to epidemic chronic disease.  Will we start making a serious effort to develop healthy habits, particularly K-12?  Or will we continue to hit the snooze button as health worsens?
Post a Comment
Read more