Black communities endured wave of excess deaths in past 2 decades, studies find

The loss of life came at a staggering cost, medically and economically

May 16, 2023 at 11:00 a.m. EDT

Lauri Powell massages her sister Aysha-Samon Stokes during labor at a Los Angeles birthing center in South Los Angeles on Mother's Day. For African Americans, infant mortality is a leading cause of excess death and years of life lost. (Sarah Reingewirtz/Getty Images)

10 min

America’s Black communities experienced an excess 1.6 million deaths compared with the White population during the past two decades, a staggering loss that comes at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, according to two new studies that build on a generation of research into health disparities and inequity.

In one study, researchers conclude that the gap in health outcomes translated into 80 million years of potential life lost — years of life that could have been preserved if the gap between Black and White mortality rates had been eliminated. The second report determined the price society pays for failing to achieve health equity and allowing Black people to die prematurely: $238 billion in 2018 alone.