Top Stories - Posted by Tim Green-U. Texas on Wednesday, May 25, 2011 12:19 - 4 Comments 
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Whites in U.S. still live longer than blacks
By 2050 the U.S. will have more than one million centenarians, according to the Census Bureau. Despite gains in life expectancy, a racial gap still persists between white and black Americans. A new study finds differences in socioeconomic resources like educational attainment and high-paying jobs explain as much as 70 percent of the gap. (Credit: iStockphoto)
U. TEXAS-AUSTIN (US) — While life expectancy in the United States has risen from 47 years in 1900 to 78 today, statistics show African Americans, on average, die five years earlier than whites.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
Currently white life expectancy is 78.2 years, while for blacks it’s 72.9. Although the life expectancy gap between blacks and whites has declined from about seven years in 1993 to about five years in 2007, the wheels of progress are moving way too slowly, says Robert Hummer, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
“Five years might seem like a modest gap, but lives are being lost prematurely and not in a color-blind fashion,” says Hummer, a leading scholar in social demography who specializes in U.S. adult mortality patterns and trends.
To investigate the root causes of the black-white longevity gap, Hummer and Juanita Chinn, a sociology doctoral candidate, reviewed findings from previous research on U.S. adult mortality rates. They also analyzed new data from the National Health Interview Survey-Linked Mortality Files. Their findings are published as the lead article in a special issue on racial inequality and health of the Du Bois Review.
The researchers found historically based differences in socioeconomic resources like educational attainment and high-paying jobs explain as much as 70 percent of the gap in mortality rates between black and white adults in the United States.
According to their paper, 75,000 to 100,000 more blacks die prematurely than whites each year. Compared to whites, blacks continue to have higher death rates from most of the leading causes of death, including heart disease, cancer, stroke, accidents, and diabetes.
Unfortunately, the findings were not very surprising, Hummer and Chinn note. But rather than revealing new and unknown mortality patterns, Hummer says the goal of the study was to provoke a call to action.
“The key issue for the black-white mortality gap is socioeconomic resources rather than healthcare,” Hummer says. “If we truly want to eliminate disparities in mortality, we need to tackle difficult issues on the social policy agenda that aren’t simple or politically popular like racial disparities in wages, wealth, quality of schools, and access to college.”
Despite the large body of evidence that shows a strong correlation between shorter life expectancies and higher levels of poverty, Hummer and Chinn’s paper also shows Hispanics have a longer life expectancy—about 80 years—than non-Hispanic whites and blacks.
In terms of overall life expectancy, the current situation for Hispanics appears to be good.
However, Hummer notes, there is a risk in assuming Hispanic mortality patterns will always be favorable compared to other racial and ethnic groups. While Hispanic immigrants tend to be very healthy upon arrival in the United States, research has shown that their health diminishes over time and across generations as they assimilate into American society, he says.
“Hispanics have significantly lower levels of wealth, education and income compared to whites,” Hummer adds. “And if that doesn’t change, there’s a chance their good health and longevity patterns will deteriorate over time.”
According to the Census Bureau, about 40 million blacks and 200 million whites live in the United States. And by 2050, the Hispanic population is expected to triple from 46.7 million to 132.8 million. Given the nation’s changing demographics, Hummer says policymakers should work now to create equality in socioeconomic resources.
“The purpose of this study is to remind policymakers that we fell way short of our national health goal that aimed to eliminate health disparities by 2010,” Hummer says. “Without aggressive efforts to create equality in socioeconomic resources, black-white disparities in mortality will remain wide and future generations of Hispanic adults will be faced with serious challenges in maintaining their currently long life expectancy.”
More news from the University of Texas: www.utexas.edu/news/
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4 Comments
Oprah Winfrey
Stedmanscousin
hey now not only am I your husbands cousin my dad’s side of family has famous people in it..
both sides of the family had black people on television..
anyway I’d just I just wanna say that well while this is true… I don’t really understand the fullness of it in that..
now some people do better than me in some things.. but not all the time I do better than them in some things..
mentally … and white people are only smarter because they read more books period..
because when I read books nobody is smarter than me at all.. I would read them things all day..
and my dad would read them all day and he was so smart.. now you know now also I’d like to tell you now both sides of the family have affluent blacks on it including yourself..
on my dad’s side also..my dad was not very dumb..
reason why I may have had low SAT scores is obviously the fact that I haven’t had any hardcore training..
you know how Michael Jackson was forced into dancing.. whites really get forced into being more intelligent..
I refuse to believe that people are born smarter.. unless they somehow reincarnated..
at the same time in some ways I can verify that whites are probably superior to us in that my cousin..
on my dad’s side who has a half black and white dad but white mom so came out white is like.. smarter than people…
for no reason.. but he’s really not smarter for no reason.. fact is we play video games all day..
and it does make us smarter because we have to read and evaluate situations..
and his mom makes him apply himself..
no blacks are dumb because they don’t read books that’s why.. period… and also they don’t get shunned for it..
like whites.. my dad probably also read books because he was by himself most of the time and an only child..
that’s probably all there was to do.. well with me I had done things and it was all there was to do besides yes also hanging out with buddies..
hey you know… that some video games helped increase my IQ and vocabulary skills especially at a young age..
one reason why whites are more intelligent than blacks would be because people don’t realize that math increases your iq more than reading..
they always make blacks read books.. while whites are both reading books and doing math..
blacks cannot abandon the math.. the math is probably more important.. for increasing early iq..
and also some kind of trainings for the brain create a temporary iq increase that fades away.. while others are more permanent..
i’ve noticed this after playing a few thousand rounds of chess..
Stedmanscousin
my cousin on my dad’s side is white I was kinda raised with him.. our uncle or whatever he was on bet..
now my white cousin.. does is lazier than I am but does better in school.. I really don’t believe this..
no I don’t think he really does better in school than me it is all about study habits..
now I wonder if people underestimate the iq enhancing effects of study habits..
I’ve noticed the various kinds of toys my white cousin plays with.. he played with legos.. and he would build
large constructs from them.. and I believe he achieved greater intellect through these toys as well..
I think that since he sticks with particular games.. like strategy games my dad introduced us to.. while I go off and play other games.. I think it increased his iq..
no seriously whites are only smarter because of training..
Stedmanscousin
whites live longer in the U.S. because blacks eat food that is bad for them..
and do more drugs…
and the black community is smaller so blacks who don’t date out of race always wind up with aids because there is less to choose from in the black community..
of course these have to be reasons.. atleast to SOME extent..
what is the root-cause (RC) of the diparity in SAT scores.. income, life expectancy… there is gap IQ gap among blacks whites.
white IQ is centered at 100
black IQ is centered at 82-85.. There is gap of 15-18 points in IQ among the races.
IQ gap known for 80-100 years now.. .
All test in colleges, military, SAT, GRE. GMAT will show the gap in IQ…
The RC of the differences is found in the IQ difference of 15-18 points among blacks and whites..
How do we know this to be true..
Look at professional sports…
look at who plays pro football. pro basketball… can your eyeballs lie…. 80% of NBA is black
blacks have great sports ability but lower IQ……
Nature has Never Never Never and will Never create equality.. .
Nature never has and never will.. All else is just fantasy for little children..