Eliminating African American Health Disparities in New York City
Through
Knowledge, Insurance, Treatment, and Advocacy.

Martin Luther King once observed that "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

Thirty-eight years after his death and 42 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, American society can lay claim to justified pride in the improvements of racial equity made in employment, housing, education, civil rights, and voting rights. Much has been accomplished, but the complete elimination of racial disparity and discrimination remains elusive.

In no other fundamental aspect of American life is Dr. King’s observation truer than in the lack of access to and failed delivery of quality health care to African Americans. By most accepted measurements of health care standards, African Americans present a disproportionately worse picture than their majority counterparts. African Americans in New York City and across the country have shorter life expectancy, higher rates of premature death, higher infant mortality, and higher incidence of major killer diseases such as HIV/AIDS, heart ailment, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and obesity.

Such is the strength of the evidence of racial inequality of American health care that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services prophesied in its “Guiding Principle for Improving Minority Health” that:

“The future of health of the nation will be determined to a large extent by how effectively we work with communities to reduce and eliminate health disparities between non-minority and minority populations experiencing disproportionate burdens of diseases, disability, and premature death.”

Recognizing the central importance of great health to high educational achievement as well as social and economic success, Associated Black Charities has initiated KITA (Knowledge, Insurance, Treatment, and Advocacy) to help eliminate health disparities in New York City.