Keep vision of MLK alive: Close minority-health gap

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and inhumane.”

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., March 1966

Fifty years ago last month, the father of America’s civil-rights movement duly lashed out at the widening health gap between white Americans and minorities. Though not as brutal in the moment as were the billy clubs and attack dogs used to stifle discontent, the long-term pain of inaccessibility to basic health care dealt a harsh blow to the quality of life of blacks and other minorities. It also contributed significantly to the great divide between America’s haves and have-nots.

Two decades later in 1985, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released its landmark report, the Secretary’s Task Force Report on Black and Minority Health, better known as The Heckler Report. It reinforced King’s angst by documenting the prevalence of health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. It called such disparities “an affront both to our ideals and to the ongoing genius of American medicine.”

Today, improvements in technology, standards of living and access to health care have begun to narrow those once colossal gaps. Nonetheless, health inequities remain a stain on our nation and an affront to our noble ideals.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African Americans have a 200 percent greater likelihood of dying from asthma, a 250 percent greater chance of dying during pregnancy, 900 percent greater risk of dying from HIV/AIDS and a 200 percent greater likelihood of dying from cervical or prostate cancer than do white Americans.

And though the wide gap between black and white life expectancy has narrowed in many parts of the nation, blacks in general today can expect to live five fewer years than whites. In Washington, D.C., the National Vital Statistics System reports that the 14.4-year gap for males and 10.4-year gap for black females reported in 1992 has not changed markedly in the intervening quarter of a century.

Other minority groups face disparities as well. Fourteen percent of Hispanics have been diagnosed with diabetes compared with 8 percent of whites. They have higher rates of end-stage renal disease, caused by diabetes. Asian Americans suffer disproportionately from certain types of cancer, tuberculosis and hepatitis B, according to the Center for American Progress.

MINORITY HEALTH GETS ITS DUE ATTENTION

One positive outgrowth of the Heckler Report has been the creation and proliferation of public-health offices at the federal, state and local levels of government designed specifically to target minority health and lessen or eliminate disparities.

In Youngstown, the Office of Minority Health was created in 2008 and has led the charge locally to bring greater equity to health care and health-care outcomes. Youngstown City Council, in recognition of the office’s role in enhancing the quality of life for all, unanimously adopted a resolution at its meeting last week proclaiming April as Minority Health Month. We, too, lend our support to the office and its mission.

That mission is clear and laudatory. The YOMH through collaboration and partnering with local health care stakeholders and community groups promotes awareness, education, advocacy and support to reduce health care disparities.

Earlier this month, the office sponsored a citywide baby shower designed to present expectant mothers with advice, counseling and testing to help lower the city’s shockingly high rate of infant mortality among blacks. For the duration of the month, the office has a variety of educational events planned that all people concerned about minority health should make a point to support. They include:

A Look at Substance Abuse and Violence from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Thursday at Tabernacle Baptist Church on Arlington Street.

Healthier Food, Healthier Families: Promoting Nutrition Access and Healthy Living Among Latinos from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday at OCCHA on Shirley Road.

A multiple sclerosis forum for the African-American community from noon to 3 p.m. April 19 at Oakhill Renaissance Place.

These and other events in the Mahoning Valley complement the 2016 national Minority Health Month theme of “Accelerating Health Equity for the Nation.” Medical advances and new technologies provide Americans of all backgrounds the means to lead longer and healthier lives. But as long as the gap between whites and minority groups lingers, King’s appeal of 50 years ago remains just as relevant today. Until the gap is closed, his dream for equality for all – including a decent quality of life – shamefully will be deferred.