Poverty Within African American Communities

Being African American and seeing how the African American community got impacted took interest to my eyes. From poverty to deaths, African Americans were the group impacted the most by this pandemic.

No I am not saying African American deaths are more important than any other race deaths. But it is something serious to take into account.

Poverty In African American Communities

African Americans were affected heavily during these times and compared to any other races they had greater numbers in death and poverty. Poverty also affects African American health because less money means they eat unhealthy food and cause many health problems. Food deserts in communities of lower income families are really common and it doesn’t help when healthy food is expensive.

“Regardless of the trend in poverty, the proportion of Indigenous and African American people in poverty is singularly the most significant aspect of their disproportionate representation in COVID-19 mortality numbers. Poverty affects the quality of food that is accessible and can be purchased, and this impacts obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Food deserts in areas inhabited by the poor are commonplace in the United States, meaning that even if the desire is to make healthy food choices, there may be no opportunity to do so”(2021).

For black communities 1 out of 5 black households are located in a food desert and the COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t help with this problem. Poverty leads to having to eat healthy foods then leading to more deaths in the black community. It all starts with poverty then leads into something bigger.

Being from New York City there are a lot of food deserts in lower income neighbors. Restaurants like McDonalds, Wendy, KFC, etc are the options you’ll get in these neighborhoods. Not only are they the main options, they are the cheap and more affordable options. They promote a cheap menu to benefit lower income individuals but are far from healthier.

How Can We Fix This?

In order to fix food desert and poverty within it we have to work on making healthier food like vegetables and Non-GMO products more affordable. These products are usually more expensive because of the time it takes to make and the effort. But if we work on having farms grow more food we definitely could work on having more affordable food. And give incentives to farmers to grow more organic food and provide more money to them so they are enthusiastic about growing organic products.

Race, Poverty, and Covid-19 | Sustainability and Climate … https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/scc.2021.0027.