African Americans remain disparately impacted by chronic diseases. However, no matter how you “slice the pie” African American (AA) men suffer disproportionately higher mortality rates than their female and Caucasian male counterparts for almost every disease. In general, men tend to experience higher disease burden than females. In fact, Harvard Medical School reports that in eight out of 10 leading causes of death, the death rate is higher for men than women, and higher for AA men than other men. For example, the heart disease death rate for African American males is 2 times greater than that of their male Caucasian peers. Simply being African American is a risk factor for Prostate cancer-whereby AA men are nearly 2.5 times more likely to die from prostate cancer than their Caucasian counterparts. Research notes that there are many contributing factors for these disturbing health outcomes ranging from macro (socio-ecological) to micro (individual health beliefs/behaviors) level factors. The good news is that more and more attention is being given to gender-specific health care; the “not-so-good” news is that much more attention is needed to scratch the surface on understanding the complexities of African American men’s health.

February is African American history month and American Heath month and because heart disease remains the leading cause of death among AA men, Health Promotion Council (HPC) would like to empower AA men to “Take Control” by doing the following:

•Schedule an annual physical exam

o   An annual checkup also gives men the opportunity to talk with their doctor about any concerns.

•Adopt a healthy diet

o   Keeping trim is important for heart health, but many men skip meals, snack during the day, eat a big meal loaded with fat and calories at night, and, not surprisingly, gain weight.

•Engage in physical activity

o   Physical inactivity is a risk factor for heart disease, thirty minutes a day, five days a week, at a pace vigorous enough to increase heart rate and break a sweat.

•Practice stress reduction

o   Explore stress-reducing techniques such as deep breathing, relaxation exercises, meditation, and massage.

•Get to know your history

o   Knowing your family’s medical history will allow you to alert your doctor of any genetic chronic conditions that run in your family, so that your health care provider can keep an eye on your health status and run the necessary tests to keep you healthy.

For almost a decade HPC has worked with the community to improve men’s health.  Just to name a couple of successful initiatives: 1) SHAPE-IT, this program focused Stroke, Hypertension and Prostate issues that African American men face; and 2) the Black Men in Hypertension and Diabetes (HD), which is a research project that concentrated on developing resource materials for African American men who had a diagnosis of Hypertension and/or diabetes to help them become better informed about living with these chronic conditions. Our goal is simple: educate and empower but our belief is simpler“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.