Blacks at high risk for some ailments

Philly:

HYPERTENSION

• African-Americans have among the highest rates of hypertension of any race or ethnic type in the world.

• 35 percent of African-Americans have hypertension, which accounts for 20 percent of the African-American deaths in the United States - twice the percentage of deaths among whites from hypertension. Compared with whites, hypertension develops earlier in life and average blood pressures are much higher in African-Americans.

• African-Americans with high blood pressure have an 80 percent higher chance of dying from a stroke than in the general population.

• African-Americans with high blood pressure have a 20 percent higher chance of developing heart disease than in the general population.

• African-Americans with high blood pressure have a four times greater risk of developing hypertension-related end-stage kidney disease than the general population.

Source: CDC, National Center for Health Statistics

DIABETES

• Seven percent of the U.S. population has diabetes, but the disease disproportionately affects African-Americans.

More than 3 million or 13.3 percent of all African-Americans age 20 years or older have diabetes.

• African-American are 1.8 times more likely to have diabetes as non-Hispanic whites.

• Twenty-five percent of African- Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 have diabetes.

• One in four African-American women over 55 has diabetes.

Source: American Diabetes Association

ASTHMA

• African-Americans are three times more likely to be hospitalized from asthma than non-Hispanic whites.

• African-Americans are three times more likely to die from asthma.

• African-American women have the highest asthma mortality rate of all groups, more than 2.5 times higher than Caucasian women.

Source: Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America

Diabetic blacks, Hispanics face more hospitalizations