Health

According to an article on Black Politics on the Web, a new report by AARP’s Public Policy Institute shows that influenza and pneumonia vaccination rates for older African Americans and Hispanics lag significantly behind those of whites.

“It’s tragic that America loses so many lives each year to preventable diseases,” said AARP Board Member Jacob Lozada.

According to CNN, a report published by the Black AIDS Institute, an HIV/AIDS think tank, states that the AIDS epidemic among African Americans in some parts of the U.S.

A recent study found that watching television raises blood pressure in obese children:

Watching too much television may not only help make children fat, it may also raise their blood pressure, U.S.

A recent AP story reported on the possible lingering impact on a new generation of Blacks of the government's infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study. It specifically looked at a possible role of the experiment in Blacks' participation (or not) in clinical trials:

Two separate studies by Johns Hopkins University physicians took opposing sides on whether the Tuskegee experiment remains a significant factor in turning blacks away from clinical trials at a greater rate than whites.

If the FEMA debacle in the aftermath of the Gulf Coast hurricanes is any example, can the federal government successfully implement universal health care?

A USA Today article reported on a conference of African American clergy, medical professionals and lawmakers gathered to map a plan to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Black community:

Although African-Americans make up only 13.5% of the U.S. population, blacks were 49% of the new HIV diagnoses in 2005, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Results of a Consumer Reports poll show that 50% of parents who have overweight or obese children don't realize their children weigh too much.

It has been widely reported—including in a Medical News TODAY article and a press release touting National Minority Donor Awareness Day—that there is a critical need of organ and tissue donations, particularly for people of color:

"There is a greater number of minorities who need organ transplants, but there is a lack of donors.

A CNN report, based on an article by researchers with Yale University and the University of Hawaii-Manoa, discusses the stigma faced by overweight children.

Overweight children are stigmatized by their peers as early as age 3 and even face bias from their parents and teachers, giving them a quality of life comparable to people with cancer, a new analysis concludes.

How can we reverse the epidemic of child obesity?

Michael Moore’s documentary film, Sicko, has intensified the debate on healthcare in the U.S. The problems are complex and opinions are all over the map.

"There's not just one way to do this," he [Wasserman] said.