Race and Health in the United States

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.Race and health research is mostly from the United States. It has found both current and historical racial differences in the frequency, treatments, and availability of treatments for several diseases. This can add up to significant group differences in variables such as life expectancy. Many explanations for such differences have been argued, including socioeconomic factors (e.g., education, employment, and income), lifestyle behaviors (e.g., physical activity and alcohol intake), social environment (e.g., educational and economic opportunities, racial/ethnic discrimination, and neighborhood and work conditions), and access to preventive health-care services (e.g., cancer screening and vaccination) as well as to treatment (through lack of insurance, lack of hospitals in certain areas, etc.), among other environmental differences. Some diseases may also be influenced by genes which differ in frequency between groups, such as sickle-cell anemia, which occurs overwhelmingly among some black populations, although the significance in clinical medicine of race categories as a proxy for exact genotypes of individuals has been questioned.

Klappentext

Race and health research is mostly from the United States. It has found both current and historical racial differences in the frequency, treatments, and availability of treatments for several diseases. This can add up to significant group differences in variables such as life expectancy. Many explanations for such differences have been argued, including socioeconomic factors (e.g., education, employment, and income), lifestyle behaviors (e.g., physical activity and alcohol intake), social environment (e.g., educational and economic opportunities, racial/ethnic discrimination, and neighborhood and work conditions), and access to preventive health-care services (e.g., cancer screening and vaccination) as well as to treatment (through lack of insurance, lack of hospitals in certain areas, etc.), among other environmental differences. Some diseases may also be influenced by genes which differ in frequency between groups, such as sickle-cell anemia, which occurs overwhelmingly among some black populations, although the significance in clinical medicine of race categories as a proxy for exact genotypes of individuals has been questioned.