February is both Black History Month and American Heart Month. And there are a number of challenges faced by African Americans and their heart health.
“Heart disease, it is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States, and also for all races,” said Dr. Pelbreton Balfour, a cardiologist and medical director of non-invasive cardiology at Baptist Heart and Vascular Institute in Pensacola.
Support Local Stories. Donate Here.
But while heart health appears to be a worry for all Americans, the US Department of Health and Humans Services says African Americans are 30% more likely to die from heart disease. “We have seen that health disparity with regards to heart disease over the last several decades,” said Dr. Balfour. “And unfortunately even with minor reductions in the overall rates of heart disease, we are still seeing that disparity among African Americans.”
When studying heart disease in a certain population, researchers first look at known the risk factors. That’s where the disparities in heart health between African Americans and other groups begin to become apparent.
“We know that African Americans are more likely to have risk factors for heart disease such as high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol,” said Dr. Balfour. “And in addition (they are more likely) to have multiple risk factors.”
There are some risk factors you can’t control, such as age, gender and family history of heart disease. Then there are others that have more to do with life-style than genetics. When it comes to risk factors that can be control, smoking is at the top of the list. Nationwide, Black people smoke at about the same rate as Whites, but Black men are far more likely to smoke than women.
“Which is unfortunate because it does lead to a significant number of deaths that we could prevent by not smoking,” said Dr. Balfour.
Research also shows that African Americans die at a higher rate after they have been diagnosed. Dr. Balfour says this could be because they are getting that diagnosis later and their disease has progressed further. He feels making sure everyone has access to health care is one of the biggest keys to saving lives.
“Because of delayed care, when they are diagnosed with heart disease, then we realize that they also have high blood pressure that hasn’t been treated, or diabetes that hasn’t been treated. That is a higher risk individual so their outcomes are likely to be worse than someone who may have been seeking health care earlier and had certain risk factors under control.”
To help improve local access to health care, Baptist Health Care is reaching out to congregations in the community through their Faith Health Network.
“Our goal is to make sure that people have access to any health care system, not just heart health, at the right time, at the right place, for the right reason, and that they don’t feel alone,” said Joy Sharp, director of community health programs for Baptist Health Care. “We go into the churches, into the communities and we don’t just focus on the congregation, we also focus on the communities around the congregation so that we can make sure that their health care is elevated as well.”
The goal of the network is to meet people where they live and bring them the vital health information and access they need. “There is research that says only 20% of a person’s health care, or health, is handled within a doctor’s office or a hospital setting,” said Sharp. “The other 80% is genetics, it’s zip codes, it’s behavioral. So we focus on a lot of those risk factors, that 80%.”
Since they say getting the highest possible level of service to people in the community takes a community, the Faith Health Network has reached out to other organizations in the region.
“We partner with Health and Hope, we partner with Community Health of Northwest Florida to make sure every resident in our county has access to primary care and some level of specialty care,” said Sharp. “And so what we do is barrier elimination. Access to health care while having no health insurance, transportation, food, co-pay assistance. We do things like that to make sure that we are eliminating the barriers on the front end.”
Trying to get a handle on recent data about heart health is a bit tricky. Because of the COVID pandemic, a lot of people stayed home and didn’t get the testing and primary care they would have under normal circumstances. And for some people it went beyond primary care.
“We saw a drop in patients presenting to the hospital with heart attacks and strokes,” said Dr. Balfour. “Which was very concerning. Because we knew that that decrease was not because of an advancement in care, that was patients not showing up for what we would consider to be emergency diagnosis.”
For now, Dr. Balfour says the best way for everyone to prevent heart disease is to know your risks and get regular checkups and tests with a primary care provider.
