Health Promotion in The African American Population Research Paper 2022

Running head: AFRICAN AMERICAN HEALTH PROMOTION 1
Health Promotion in The African American Population
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AFRICAN AMERICAN HEALTH PROMOTION 2
African American Health Promotion
Black Americans in the US represent 13 percent of the total population in the US. As of
2017, the number of black Americans was 41.4 million people who were living in the US
(Fiscella & Sanders, 2016). Black American society is the second-largest minority group after
the Hispanic population. The black community is widely distributed across the United States;
however, Texas, California, Georgia, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, and Illinois were
indicated to be home to approximately 60 percent of the black population (Fiscella & Sanders,
2016). The life expectancies of the black community as of 2015 was approximated at 78.9 years
for females and 77.5 years for black males (Fiscella & Sanders, 2016). The death rate of black
Americans is higher than that of the white population attributed to different conditions, including
heart attack, stroke, asthma, cancer, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, homicide, and pneumonia (Spruill,
Magwood, Nemeth & Williams, 2015). This paper will the health status of the black American
minority group living in the US.
Black Americans are the least healthy racial community in the US. The ethnic group is
implicated with a dark legacy of many years of social and racial inequality and a daunting
challenge to universal health care for all (Fiscella & Sanders, 2016). The blank Americans have a
history of slavery and currently are faced with racial discrimination, which is attributed to the
group’s current poor health status in general (Noonan, Velasco-Mondragon & Wagner, 2016).
Many policies have been formulated to reduce the disparity witnessed in the health status of the
blacks living in the US; however, the community continues to endure health inequalities and has
limited influence on policy and actions that can help reduce the disparities (Spruill et al., 2015).
Racism is one of the significant influences of social and health inequalities in the black
American community in the US through prejudice, exclusion, and discrimination (Williams &