United Nations, Multilateral Fund, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

This paper provides an assessment and analysis of the increasing rates of mortality among the children of low-income African-American families in the United States and the intensifying problem of improper health care that seems to have given rise to it. The paper first documents the nature and determinants of the problem and then addresses the issue of policy prescriptions for eradicating the dilemma. The primary problem underlying the health-care access of low-income African-Americans is that there is neither a system of universal entitlement that ties their health care in with the rest of the population nor an explicit and comprehensive strategy for care outside the dominant private system.

PMID: 10148655 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]