Abstarct
Significant health disparities in chronic diseases, (e.g., cancer, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and diabetes) (CDC, January, 2005; Farmer & Ferraro, 2005; Gehlert et al., 2008; Glover, Greenlund, Ayala CDC, Croft, 2005; LaVeist, Bowie, & Cooley-Quille, 2000; Sudano & Baker, 2006; Williams, 1997) and infectious diseases like Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) (Aral, Adimora, & Fenton, 2008; CDC Sexually Transmitted Diseases Surveillance report, 2008, 2009; CDC, 2008 HIV/AIDS Surveillance report, 2007), exist among ethnic minorities in the United States (US). Among US racial and ethnic minority populations, African American communities are the most disproportionately impacted. Further, rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) like Chlamydia, gonorrhea and HIV in African American communities are the highest in the nation (CDC, 2007). Causes for these disparities are interrelated and fundamentally due to contextual and structural factors like higher poverty rates, lack of access to adequate health care, higher incarceration rates, lower income and educational attainment, and racism (Adimora et al., 2006; Aral et al.; Chu & Selwyn, 2008; Gehlert et al.; LaVeist et al., 2007). Therefore, interventions to address health disparities that exist between African Americans and Caucasians should be integrated and address the contextual and structural environment in which African Americans exist.