Blacks with Muscular Dystrophy Die 10-12 Years Younger than Whites
African Americans with muscular dystrophy die 10 to 20 years younger than their White counterparts, according to research published in a recent issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The Black-White mortality gap, which was calculated on the basis of 20 years of data, is among the largest ever observed in the annals of research into racial disparities in health care, say Dr. Nicte Mejia and Dr. Rachel Nardin, coauthors of the editorial. “Furthermore,” they write, “White patients with MD [muscular dystrophy] enjoy increasing survival, while survival of Black patients with MD barely budges,” leading to an ongoing widening of that gap.
Muscular dystrophy is a group of inherited muscle diseases that lead to early death due to respiratory or cardiac failure. Various types of MD affect about 50,000 Americans.
“Inequities in the health delivery system – and the multiple ways in which race constrains access to care – seem the most likely explanation for the observed MD Black-White mortality gap,” Mejia and Nardin write in their editorial. But they add that inadequate access to care due to lack of good quality health insurance may also be part of the picture.
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