Good News:
Life Expectancy
Up For Blacks

            (Taylor Media Services) Despite a constant barrage of negative news about the health conditions of African Americans, the latest government figures suggest Blacks, on average, are living longer—if only slightly. The data recently released from the National Center for Health Statistics show in 2005 life expectancy for whites was 78.3 years—the same as it was in 2004. However, the life expectancy for Blacks was 73.2 years up from 73.1 years in 2004.
       For society as a whole, longer lives appear to have resulted from a decline in the number of deaths due to strokes and heart disease. Cancer has now displaced heart disease as the nation’s number one killer. In an area which disproportionately affects young Black males, there was also a decline in the number of deaths due to homicides in the past five years. Nevertheless, Black males on average continue to live significantly shorter lives than Black females. Indeed, Black females are outliving white males.
       Following are the average life expectancies for Blacks and whites, according to a detailed June report in the Journal of the American Medical Association:
            * White females—80.5 years
            * Black females—76.1 years
            * White males—75.3 years
            * Black males—69.0 years