The Dynamics of African-American Health: A Historical Perspective

There are many misconceptions about African American health that have subtle and continuing influence on health policy debates. Unfortunately, many of the misconceptions surrounding African American health have an implicit historical dimension, and the usual response for the lack of evidence in support of any myth is that “the data does not exist” to shed full light on the given question. This is unfortunate as there is now a growing body of evidence pertaining to the historical health of the African American population, and this data is currently being used to uncover a number of facts about the historical dynamics of African American health. In this paper, we show that our historical data on the health of African Americans is wholly lacking and at the same time show that one prominent myth about trends in African American health does not stand up to historical investigation. We conclude with a brief note about where this research is headed and what future topics should be explored in African American economic and health history.