An old saying in the black community is “When white folks catch a cold, black folks get pneumonia.”
Statistics show that when blacks and whites get the same illnesses such as HIV or cancer, blacks are more likely to die, and SF State’s Public Research Institute has recently received a five-year, $5 million grant from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities to support related research.

Dr. Dean Robinson, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is currently researching the disparities between blacks and whites and visited SF State campus to lecture on the subject.

“Blacks get sicker and die sooner than their white counterparts not due to biology, behavior nor health access although they contribute,” Robinson said. “They get sicker because of lower social status.”

Socioeconomic factors like poor education, unemployment and underemployment, and poverty led to health disparities amongst minority groups. Robinson said disparities almost disappear among blacks and whites at the same socioeconomic level.

Robinson also looked at the politics involved in health care, noting that the health of blacks improved with the increased political power that came with the civil rights movement, voting rights and the desegregation of hospitals.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the top three causes and seven of the 10 leading causes, of death are the same for blacks and whites. The risk factors and incidence, morbidity and morality rates for these diseases, which include heart disease, cancer, and stroke, are often greater among blacks than whites.

Dr. Meredith Minkler, professor of health and social behavior at UC Berkeley, said although the main reason for health disparities between whites and minorities is social class, cultural differences and health care also play a part.

According to Minkler, some cultures have a distrust of medical care, and cultural differences can affect communication styles, which leads to a miscommunication of symptoms and a misdiagnosis of illness.

In a separation of race and health, a 2002 report from the Institute of Medicine stated that white people are treated better and more aggressively by health care professionals than minority groups regardless of income, education, or health insurance coverage.

“Minorities who go to the doctor are less likely to be given more costly procedures and are less likely to be referred to specialists than whites,” Minkler said.

Minkler’s suggestions for closing the gap in health include changing housing segregation, better schools for kids, and people living in areas where they can find work.

“You can’t go in and fix medical care access if people live in poor neighborhoods,” she said.
Like Minkler, it is SF State health care educator Kamal Harb’s hope that all people can work toward the common goal of equality in health care.

“It is our responsibility as health care professionals as well as health care consumers to eliminate health disparities by taking an active role in our health and use our power of voting to work for universal health coverage,” Harb said.

“I believe health care should not be a privilege but a right in the United States,” he said.

In his book, “The Covenant with Black America,” Tavis Smiley looks at the concerns of black Americans, and suggests a plan of action to overcome various social inequities from health care to education. According to Smiley, blacks can take an active role in their own health by improving their diets, exercising, and organizing healthy living committee in their communities.

Through the grant given to SF State, the Public Research Institute will be able to fund seminar series, invite scholars to speak on research and afford faculty fellowships for those interested in or currently researching disparities in minority populations.