Heart Research Targets Poor People, Blacks

Heart disease is increasingly becoming an ailment of the poor, according to Dr. Kenneth Shine, dean of the UCLA medical school and president of the American Heart Assn.

“By the end of this decade, it’s likely that socioeconomic status may be one of the most important risk factors for cardiovascular disease,” he said at a recent forum for science writers in Los Angeles.

Overall heart disease death rate in the United States dropped 39% between 1963 and 1984. Studies show that upper- and middle-class whites have enjoyed the greatest improvement in cardiovascular health and that poor people and blacks have the highest rates of heart disease, high blood pressure and strokes, Shine said.

The problem, he said, is not so much a question of access to health care as it is ineffective public education on how to reduce heart disease fatalities.

The heart association plans to conduct a series of meetings next spring with government and industry leaders to develop strategies for teaching blacks and poor people about how to prevent heart disease, Shine said.