MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Statistically, African-Americans live shorter lives than other races in our country, and groundbreaking research from a Memphis VA doctor could help shed light on why.
Dr. Csaba Kovesdy unveiled his findings to WREG comparing mortality rates between African-American and Caucasian veterans.
The research compares the rates of civilian deaths and veteran deaths for African-Americans.
He called the results surprising. Now he is hoping others will use his findings to implement change.
Kovesdy never expected to be in the spotlight. But after announcing the outcome of his two-year study surrounding mortality rates for African-American veterans, that is exactly where he is.
“We’ve received a lot of attention because of the unexpected nature of these findings,” he said.
Kovesdy said his team studied a grouping of 3 million veterans.
“These are veterans who were enrolled in the VA throughout the United States. Among them were about 2.5 million white veterans and more than half a million African-American veterans.”
They focused on Caucasians and African-Americans because those are the only two groupings largely represented in our military.
What they found was that although the overall mortality rate for African-Americans is higher than Caucasians, about 42 percent higher, black veterans had a lower rate.
“We compared their mortality and their vascular outcomes, such as heart attacks and strokes,” the doctor said. “We found, surprisingly, mortality was significantly, by about a quarter, lower in African-American veterans.”
The rate of heart attacks was about a third lower in black veterans as well. The reason is unclear.
But Kovesdy said one theory is healthcare is more widely accessible to African-American veterans than to civilians of the same race because they are automatically enrolled in the VA system.
His study did not break down causes of death, but he said the research opens the door for others to continue searching for answers and solutions, some of which may not even been medical.
“If we hypothesize that a health care system that poses no barriers could have such a tremendous impact on the outcomes of poorer people, this is something that should be pondered by politicians, economists,” he said.
The research was funded through a grant from the National Institute of Health.