Race & Epi

So I had to take a quick break from studying and type this post...I have been pretty uneasy since this morning in my Epidemiology class and then I just had a frustrating convo with someone on facebook (my blood was starting to boil, not necessarily because of what he was saying, but because I know that a lot of people feel that way). Anyways...so in my Epi class today we were talking about basic Epi things...and for those of you that don't know... Epidemiology is basically "the study of distribution and determinants of diseases and injuries in human populations."

So of course the discussion turned to race because that is a big part of Epi because the three most important characteristics for predicting the prevalance and frequency of a disease are Age, Sex, and Ethnic Group/Race. Keeping in mind that none of this is too new to me because for a second I was a Global Health minor, so we learned most of this in my global health class. Anyways...so after some discussion a slide comes up that has...

-Blacks have substantially higher rates of death caused by:

• Hypertensive heart disease
• Cerebrovascular accidents (strokes)
• Tuberculosis
• Syphilis
• Homicide
• Accidents
• Cancer of the Cervix
• Sickle cell anemia

Whites have higher rates of death from:

• Arterisoclerotic heart disease
• Suicide
• Leukemia
• Cancer of the breast

So I am just sitting there taking it all in...I could feel my blood starting to boil a little and I was feeling uncomfortable, since I am one of two black people in my class. And then we go on to make a general trend in most diseases that the frequency occurs in this ascending order whites, asians, hispanics, and then blacks.. So basically black folks have majority of preventable illnesses. (Again none of this was new, but I felt like all of the white people were looking at me...it was just an overall weird feeling).

So then we start talking about life expectancy and average for these groups are...

White Females- 81 years
White Males- 76 years
Black Female- 76 years
Black Male- 69 years..

Yeah take from that what you will...Just the rest of the class was pretty tense and I was just ready til' it was over, but I know that is more where that came from. The part that made it all so bad was that it is REALITY.

When I hear people say they are independent of their race and all kinds of craziness like that, I usually just gasp in my head. Yes you may not all the time be aware of your race, but honestly being black is a risk factor for sooo many diseases...it's crazy. Of course I am and always have been aware of my race (that isn't necessarily a bad thing), but it hard not to be when you are one of 2 blacks...sigh...

So I was sharing some of these stats with a friend/acquaintance and he had all of these silly reasons of why things were the way they were and I was fine with that, but when he told me that there is nothing I can do about it, that black folks will never change their ways. It made me really frustrated! Black people are dying and underachieving left and right and I don't see why we as a black population are not more accountable for each other. We always seem to be trying to separate ourselves from certain parts of the black community and what not, but we CANNOT and WILL NOT progess as a people if we keep on deciding to just "do us" and forget about others... All of the "get quick rich" schemes are just getting old...I don't mean to end abruptly, but I need to studying...Until Next Time...