Cultural diversity is related to stress and, in turn, to health and well-being.
Although approximately three-quarters of the U.S. population is white, it is projected that by the year 2050 just over 52 percent will be white. Estimates are that, by 2050, 23 percent of Americans will be Hispanic, 14 percent will be African American, and 10 percent will be Asian American.
Diversity is related to such health indices as infant mortality, life expectancy, years of potential life lost, hypertension, AIDS, cancer, and mental health.
The infant mortality rate for the general population is 6.9 deaths per 1,000 live births. However, it is 13.5 for African Americans. For whites, the infant mortality rate is 5.7, for Hispanics it is 5.6, for Native American it is 8.3, and for Asian Americans it is 4.9.
Life expectancy at birth for the general population is 76.9 years. However, for white males, life expectancy is 9 years longer than for African American males (74.8 compared with 68.2). And life expectancy for white females is 5.1 years longer than for African American females (80.0 compared with 74.9).
The major causes of death vary somewhat by ethnicity and race, cultural background, and gender. For example, AIDS is the ninth leading cause of death among African Americans, but it is not included in the top ten causes of death for whites, Native Americans, Asian Americans, or Hispanics.
High blood pressure and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) affect African Americans to a greater extent than they affect other subgroups of the population. African Americans have a disproportionate incidence of high blood pressure and comprise 50 percent of the AIDS cases.
The suicide rate for Native American male youths aged fifteen to twenty-four (26.2 deaths per 100,000) is nearly 1.5 that of white male youths, about 2 times the rate for African American, 1.5 times the rate for Hispanic males, and 2.5 times the rate for Asian American males.
Poverty is also associated with poor health. Although 12 percent of the general population lives in poverty, 22 percent of African Americans, 21 percent of Hispanics, and 11 percent of Asian/Pacific Islanders live in poverty. By contrast, only 9 percent of white Americans live in poverty.
Rather than decreasing, homelessness is actually increasing. On any given night, some estimates are that between 444,000 and 842,000 people in the United States are homeless and up to 3.5 million experience homelessness sometime during the year. The number of homeless families increased dramatically throughout the 1990s. Families with children are the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population. Families with children under eighteen years of age account for 40 percent of the urban homeless, and 4 percent of the urban homeless are unaccompanied children.
Nearly 63 percent of African American children live with one parent only, 36 percent of Hispanic children live with only one parent, and 27 percent of white children come from one-parent families. Furthermore, African American adults are more likely to be single (40 percent of African American men and 38 percent of African American women are unmarried). The comparable figures for whites are 25 percent for men and 18 percent for women.
