The Presence of Black Physicians in a County Boosts Black Life Expectancy

A new study from the Association of American Medical Colleges finds that African Americans in counties with a significant number of Black physicians have better health outcomes than African Americans in counties where Black physicians are scarce.

Researchers examined whether, on average, counties with increased Black representation of primary-care physicians (PCP) exhibited improved survival outcomes. They identified counties where at least one Black primary-care physician operated  during one or more time points (2009, 2014, and 2019). Black PCPs operated in 1,198 counties in 2009, 1,260 counties in 2014, and 1308 counties in 2019 — less than half of all 3,142 Census-defined US counties as of 2014.

Results indicated that greater Black workforce representation was associated with higher life expectancy and was inversely associated with all-cause Black mortality and mortality rate disparities between Black and White individuals. In adjusted mixed-effects growth models, a 10 percent increase in Black PCP representation was associated with a higher life expectancy of 30.61 days.

The authors conclude that “greater Black PCP workforce representation is associated with better population health measures for Black individuals, although there was a dearth of U.S. counties with at least one Black PCP during each study time point. Investments to build a more representative PCP workforce nationally may be important for improving population health.”

The full study, “Black Representation in the Primary Care Physician Workforce and Its Association With Population Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates in the US,” was published on the JAMA Open Network. It is available here.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Get the JBHE Weekly Bulletin

Receive our weekly email newsletter delivered to your inbox

Latest News

Recent Books of Interest to African American Scholars

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education regularly publishes a list of new books that may be of interest to our readers. The books included are on a wide variety of subjects and present many different points of view.

Nonwhite Patients Are Significantly More Likely to Have Preventative Care Insurance Claims Denied

Scholars from the University of Toronto have found non-White patients are nearly twice as likely as White patients to have an insurance claim denied. On average, they also pay more out-of-pocket costs when their claims are denied.

Leslie Rodriguez-McClellon Named Seventeenth President of Arkansas Baptist College

Prior to her new role, Dr. Rodriguez-McClellon was the vice president of community relations and governmental affairs at Saint Augustine's University in Raleigh. She has a robust background in higher education, including service as the first African American president of Rochester Community and Technical College in Minnesota.

Black Men Remain Underrepresented in the Physician Assistant Profession

From 2012 to 2021, the number of applicants to physician assistant and associate programs grew by 64 percent. However, the share of Black male applicants to these programs remained around 2 percent over this same time period.

Featured Jobs