Higher Rate of Premature Death Found in Blacks

Murder, AIDS and stroke are taking a much heavier toll on blacks than whites, a federal health agency reported Friday.

The rate of premature deaths among whites, both men and women, decreased during the decade between 1979 and 1989, but the rate increased for both black men and black women, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The Atlanta-based health agency said that the rate of premature death had declined for blacks between 1979 and 1984, but began to rise sharply in the mid-1980s.

“This report indicates an increasing disparity in early death between whites and blacks in recent years,” the agency said.

“The greatest disparities in rates are for homicide, HIV infection and cerebrovascular disease.”

The agency attributed differences in socioeconomic status and access to health care as the factors most responsible for the disparity between blacks and whites.

The CDC uses a complex mathematical formula called “years of potential life lost” to measure premature death rates. Under this formula, the agency attempts to measure all deaths occurring before the age of 65.

On the scale of “years of potential life lost,” a person who dies at age 60 is said to have lost five potential years of life.

The toll of murder is particularly striking among blacks and whites as measured on this scale. For every 1,000 white males, only 2.8 years of potential life was lost in 1989. For black males, the number was 22.5.

Although the murder rate among black males has been widely reported, even among black females, the rate in 1989 was nearly five times higher than for white females--4.7 for blacks versus 1.0 for whites.

The years of potential life lost to AIDS was only 0.3 per 1,000 among white females. But among black females, the rate was 2.8 per 1,000. The rate for black males was 11.1 per 1,000 compared to 3.9 for white males.