The Problem of Negro Health as Revealed by Vital Statistics

Abstract

It is still true in 1949, as it was in 1937 when a previous Yearbook of this JOURNAL discussed the subject, that the health of the Negro is a matter of vital concern for that race and for the nation. The Negro people still present many important health problems that urgently demand solution. They still suffer from serious physical disabilities, the correction of which will do more to advance their general welfare than will most other measures aimed at their betterment. Nevertheless, the last twelve years have seen many gains in the health of the Negro in America. Almost without exception each year has recorded advances in virtually every aspect of Negro health. This is the outstanding feature of the statistical record. Forty years ago, when I began my studies of the vital statistics of the Negro, the situation was discouraging. Then, as even now, there were no authentic data on morbidity and our chief reliance was on mortality figures. The disparity between such mortality figures as were then available for the white and colored populations was very marked. In fact, the gulf was so wide that many firmly believed it could not be bridged. Some claimed that the Negro in America was outside of his normal environment; that he could not adapt himself to the rigors of a Northern climate and that he had little or no natural immunity to the diseases prevalent here. A few even went so far as to assert that the excessive mortality made a bright future for the American Negro impossible. Fortunately, there were others who took a more optimistic view of the record, interpreting it rather in the light of temporary differences in environmental and personal hygiene. These, they held, could be corrected through the spread of education, the improvement of living standards and conditions and the development of special health and medical services for the Negro. Time has definitely confirmed the latter view. The mortality records of the official health agencies have established once and for all the ability of the Negro to respond favorably to all measures for health betterment. Thus, in 1946, the latest year for which nationwide figures have been compiled, the general death rate' for colored males in the United States was 14.0 per 1,000, and that for colored females, 11.6 per 1,000. Since 1937, the date of my last report in this JOURNAL, the mortality of colored males has been reduced by 27 per cent, while that of the females has declined 29 per cent. These rates of improvement are higher than those which were registered in the white population.