By Michel Martin, Photo: Unsplash (in site), National Public Radio, October 2, 2022
NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Andre Perry from the Brookings Institution about their study, "The Black Progress Index."
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Even if you don't follow health news or stories with a lot of numbers, this is one that might have stuck. Life expectancy in the United States overall is at its lowest since 1996 - down to 76.1 years. Now, that's largely due to the COVID pandemic. But that number, a measure of longevity, doesn't tell the whole story. But in combination with other information, it can offer meaningful information - information that can help improve the quality of life. Last week, the Brookings Institution, in partnership with the NAACP, released the Black Progress Index, a new study looking at Black life expectancy and along with other information about Black well-being. We called Andre M. Perry to tell us more about it. He's a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Andre Perry, welcome. Thanks so much for joining us.
ANDRE M PERRY: Thanks for having me, Michel.
MARTIN: So, so often, when we talk about African Americans, about the Black community, the data points to problems - you know, gun violence or poverty or health disparities. The fact is that Black life expectancy is lower than the life expectancy of our white counterparts. The data tends to point out what's wrong. So what's different about this research?
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