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VIA: WebMD.Com

In a startling 2009 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that African-Americans have a much higher incidence of heart failure than other races, and it develops at younger ages. Heart failure means that the heart isn’t able to pump blood as well as it should.

Before age 50, African-Americans’ heart failure rate is 20 times higher than that of whites, according to the study. Four risk factors are the strongest predictors of heart failure: high blood pressure (also called hypertension), chronic kidney disease, being overweight, and having low levels of HDL, the “good” cholesterol. Three-fourths of African-Americans who develop heart failure have high blood pressure by age 40.

African-Americans and Health Care

To prevent heart failure and other heart disease, it’s crucial to treat risk factors successfully, says Anne L. Taylor, MD, a professor of medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital and vice dean of academic affairs at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. But, compared with their white peers, African-Americans often have less access to health care, she says. Not only are they less likely to visit a doctor and get routine screenings, but they’re less likely to be referred to specialists.

“African-Americans with heart failure are more likely to be taken care of in a primary care practice,” Taylor says, “even though the data would suggest that the best care — the care that decreases hospitalizations and improves mortality rates — happens in cardiologists’ offices.”

Further, some African-Americans “tend to see illness and disease as the main reason for health care, so you don’t go to the physician for preventive medicine — you go when you’re sick,” says Keith C. Ferdinand, MD, FACC, FAHA. Ferdinand is a clinical professor in the cardiology division at Emory University and chief science officer of the Association of Black Cardiologists. “When are you sick? When you have symptoms: chest pain, shortness of breath, swelling, dizziness. By the time people manifest the signs and symptoms of cardiovascular disease, they have already had that disease present for one, two, or even three decades.”

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