WASHINGTON, March 16 (UPI) -- The gap in life expectancy between African-Americans and has narrowed, according to a study to be published next week.
Researches said the study points to some progress in mitigating racial health disparities, pegged as an ongoing and major challenge for public health policy in the United States.
The report, based on an analysis of 46 million deaths over two decades, shows that white males lived on average 6.3 years longer than African-American males in 2003, a drop from an 8.4-year difference ten years earlier. Life expectancy disparity among women dropped from 5.6 years to 4.5 years over the same time period.
The study is set to be published in the medical journal JAMA on Tuesday.
"We made some progress, Sam Harper, the study's main author, said in an interview. "There's still a substantial gap. Clearly, there is still a lot left to do," said Harper, an epidemiologist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
The improvement in racial differences in life expectancy followed a stark widening of the gap in the mid- to late-1980's. The report blames that trend on a rise in homicides and the disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS on African Americans.
After 1993, both causes of death abated in both blacks and whites. Homicides became less frequent as economic conditions improved and crime lessened. Deaths from AIDS have declined sharply since the advent of antiretroviral drugs.
The drops affected both blacks and whites, but because blacks are at greater risk of homicide and AIDS, reductions in both helped close the racial life expectancy gap, Harper said.
Overall life expectancy in 2003 was 78 years for whites and 72.8 years for African-Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
African American women have also benefited from a recently observed drop in rates of death from heart disease, Harper said. More widespread use of blood pressure and cholesterol-lowering drugs, as well as greater disease awareness among women are thought to be root causes. But there has been no corresponding drop in heart disease deaths among men.
African-American men and women both remain more likely to die of heart disease than do whites. The difference is so large that it accounts for at least 30 percent of the remaining difference in life expectancy between the races, the study found.
"That's an area we need to keep focusing prevention and treatment on," noted Harper.
The study is "mostly good news," said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.
"The question for me is, can we sustain that," he said in an interview. Benjamin warned that crime and homicide trends tend to be cyclical, and the racial gap in life expectancy could widen again if economic conditions deteriorate.
Benjamin said he considers infant mortality rates the most sensitive indicator of social and economic conditions between the races.
In 2003, African-Americans had an infant mortality rate of 14.1 per 1,000 births versus 5.8 per 1,000 births for whites.
