Minority Health Issues

minority health issuesWestchester County Department of Health provides a multitude of services targeted to address minority health issues. Many health issues affect our residents from minority communities in a disproportionate way. 

The statistics regarding minority health are sobering:  

  • While there are a number of health issues that adversely impact people of color, HIV is one that is striking African Americans in Westchester County far out of proportion to their representation in the population. Although African-Americans make up only 14.2 percent of Westchester County’s total population, African-Americans account for 51 percent of Westchester residents living with AIDS.
  • In the United States, if you're a male of African descent with cancer, you're two-thirds more likely to die than a white male with the same cancer.
  • Men or African descent are 50 percent more likely to develop, and twice as likely to die from prostate cancer than men of any other racial or ethnic group. American men of African descent are more likely to get prostate cancer than any other group of men in the world.
  • Women of African descent in the United States are 12 percent less likely to develop breast cancer than white women but their likelihood of surviving is 16 percent lower.
  • Forty percent of Americans of African descent rate their health as fair or poor compared to only 26 percent of whites.
  • A third of African-American seniors live in poverty, the highest rate of all races, and compared to 10 percent of white seniors.
  • African-Americans are twice as likely as whites to have diabetes.child
  • African-Americans are 50 percent more likely not to have had a flu shot compared to whites.
  • An African-American baby is nearly 2.5 times more likely to die before the first birthday than a white baby, and two times more likely to die of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) than other babies.

The Health Department is committed to addressing these issues and improving the health of all Westchester residents.

For articles on African-American health issues, visit the CDC Health Equity website.