ABSTRACT
Nearly fifteen years have passed since the Report of the Secretary's Task Force on Black and Minority Health (1986) was issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. According to this report, people of color suffered nearly 60,000 "excess deaths" annually when compared with whites. The causes of excess deaths included cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, chemical dependency, homicide and accidents, and infant mortality. A national response was demonstrated in the form of the Disadvantaged Minority Health Act, enacted in 1990. The act brought to the national agenda the most persistent and serious health issues of the century. It states:
The Congress finds that racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented among individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, [and] the health status of individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, including racial and ethnic minorities, in the United States is significantly lower than the health status of the general populations.... (Disadvantaged Minority Health Improvement Act of 1990 P.L. 101-527)
This law provides a formal statutory authority for the Office of Minority Health to help remedy the toll ill health exacts from
people of color-including African Americans, or blacks, as they will be called here. The act was further strengthened by Healthy People 2000, a wide-scale prevention project that established a national strategy to improve the health of all Americans. The intent of this chapter is to present an overview of the most serious and persistent health problems experienced by African Americans and to provide an empowering framework for studying these disease conditions, as well as to point a way to find solutions to these issues and concerns. Exemplars illustrating the empowering framework are presented. As part of the primary understanding of the importance of improving the health of American blacks, the health status of blacks in the United States is examined in the next section.
