Abstract
Health disparities associated with chronic illness experiences of black men demonstrate widespread, systematic failures to meet an urgent need. Well-established social and behavioral determinants that have led to health disparities among black men include racism, discrimination, and stress. While advocacy work that includes community-engagement and tailoring health promotion strategies have shown local impact, evidence shows the gaps are increasing. We suspect that failure to reduce current disparities may be due to conventional public health interventions and programs; therefore, we submit that innovative interventions, ones that embrace digital technologies and their ability to harness naturally occurring social networks within groups, like black men, have particular importance and deserve attention. This commentary characterizes the current literature on chronic illness among black men as well as health interventions that use digital technology, to build a case for expanding research in this area to reduce the overwhelming burden of chronic illness among black men.
Highlights
There is no shortage of data on the debilitating effects of health disparities, on the effects of chronic illness among black men
Borrowing from the world of health services research, we contend that patient engagement strategies—those promoted by digital technology and where the key ingredient is partnership and collaboration—offer promising advances to mitigate health disparities experienced by black men [1,2]
One of the leading contributors to morbidity among black males is chronic illness, heart disease and high rates of hypertension [3]
Summary
There is no shortage of data on the debilitating effects of health disparities, on the effects of chronic illness among black men. While community-based participatory methods have emerged as a leading strategy for engaging racial and ethnic groups, fostering empowerment through trust building and transparency remains a major hurdle [10] Given these gaps and opportunities, might building digital technologies that are designed to meaningfully engage black men, prioritize the contribution of brotherhood and existing social networks among black men [11]? Integrating health interventions within trusted social systems like a brotherhood, built around shared beliefs, attitudes, and authentic relationships may overcome many recognized barriers of current strategies [13] To this end, we argue that digital technologies present a unique potential for building meaningful solutions to current challenges associated with managing chronic illness among black men
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