Topic: Health Disparities
Bacterial Vaginitis in African American Women
Bacterial Vaginitis is NOT an STD Bacterial vaginitis (BV) is an imbalance of the bacteria that normally inhabit the vagina. A third of US women overall have had “BV”. Unfortunately, African American women have the highest occurrence of BV at…
Low Potassium and African Americans
Potassium doesn’t get enough credit as a very beneficial nutrient to good health and potassium deficiency (low potassium) has been directly related to high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, muscle weakness, fatigue, and much more. Multiple studies have confirmed that…
Diabetes Differences in African Americans
There has been some startling discoveries lately in the differences in how diabetes is diagnosed and treated in African Americans. Because of genetic nuances that we normally may ignore as insignificant, hundreds of thousands of African Americans remain under-diagnosed and…
More Sleep Apnea in African Americans
Sleep Apnea is more common in African Americans A recent study confirmed there is more sleep apnea in African Americans than in Whites. Sleep apnea (also call Obstructive Sleep Apnea / "OSA") is a condition where people repeatedly stop breathing…
Heart Failure in African Americans
Heart failure in African-Americans occurs more often and is more deadly. African Americans have a significantly higher risk and earlier onset of heart failure and heart-related death compared to all other populations in the United States. In fact, African Americans are two…
Kidney Disease in African Americans
Kidney disease in African Americans is one the most dramatically different occurrences of a disease, and results in significant suffering and death. Generally, kidney disease is the result of diabetes and high blood pressure, and given the increased number of…
African American Healthcare Negatively Impacted by Bias-Driven Data
Hospitals across this nation use protocols and algorithms aimed at improving outcomes in their patients, but because of nuanced differences in the care of African Americans, those protocols have now been shown to negatively impact African American healthcare. A recent…
Prostate Cancer in African American Men
Prostate cancer in African American men is more deadly, occurs more often, and can be easily detected by a blood test called a "prostate specific antigen" or "PSA." Yet many doctors have been advised against checking for this cancer because…
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study (originally called "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male") was originally formed to record the natural history of syphilis with the hope of justifying the funding of public treatment programs for African Americans. The…
Historical Reasons for African American Distrust of Doctors
Stephen Kenny, University of Liverpool The history of human experimentation is as old as the practice of medicine and in the modern era has always targeted disadvantaged, marginalized, institutionalized, stigmatized and vulnerable populations: prisoners, the condemned, orphans, the mentally ill,…
