April is National Minority Health Month

lescents should participate in at least 60 minutes of moderateto-vigorous-intensity physical activity daily.

Remember that children imitate adults. You can start by adding physical activity to your own daily routine and encouraging your child to join you.

How can communities help people stay active?

highlighted this fact, with recent data showing that one in 1,000 Black individuals have died from the coronavirus (APM Research Lab, 2020).

So, it only makes sense that COVID, control of its spread, and the related trauma are the most important things to address this April and thereafter. But other diseases still persist in the Black community that make African Americans more susceptible to COVID.

The Office of Minority Health (OMH) continues to bring awareness to other health disparities that disproportionately affect African Americans. These include:

• Diabetes is 60 percent more common in Black Americans than in White Americans. Blacks are up to 2.5 times more likely to suffer a limb amputation and up to 5.6 times more likely to suffer kidney disease than others with diabetes.

• African Americans are three times more likely to die of asthma than White Americans.

• Deaths from lung scarring are 16 times more common among Blacks than among Whites.

• Despite lower tobacco exposure, Black men are 50 percent more likely than White men to get lung cancer.

• Strokes kill four times more 35 to 54-year-old Black Americans than White Americans. Blacks have nearly twice the first-time stroke risk of Whites.

• Blacks develop high blood pressure earlier in life—and with much higher blood pressure levels—than Whites. Nearly 42 percent of Black men and more than 45 percent of Black women aged 20 and older have high blood pressure.

• Cancer treatment is equally successful for all races. Yet Black men have a 40 percent higher cancer death rate than White men. African American women have a 20 percent higher cancer death rate than White women.

The importance of simple activity proves mental health, and can make people feel better, function better, and sleep better.

Physical activity is one of the best things people can do to improve their health. Yet, too few Americans get the recommended amount of physical exercise. Only one in four adults and one in five high school students fully meet physical activity guidelines for aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities. These numbers are even lower among adults in some racial and ethnic minority populations.

How much physical activity do I need?

The “Physical Activity

Guidelines for Americans” outlines the amounts and types of physical activity and exercise needed to maintain or improve overall health and reduce the

Communities can create easy and safe options for physical activity that can help every American be more active where they live, learn, work and play. The Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) program is one of the only CDC programs that focuses on reducing chronic disease for specific racial and ethnic groups in urban, rural, and tribal communities across the United States with high-disease burden.

Remember—becoming active and healthy in and around your home to stay physically and mentally well, while still doing your part to slow the spread of COVID, is possible through simple changes to your daily routine.

David Hamlar MD, DDS is

Physical activity promotes health and reduces the risk of chronic diseases and other conditions that are often more common and more severe among racial and ethnic minority groups. Physical activity also fosters normal growth and development in children, im- risk of chronic disease. The guidelines recommend that adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, such as a brisk walk that makes your heart beat faster every week. You could achieve this goal many different ways including a 22-minute walk every day or a 30-minute walk five days a week.

How much physical activity do children need?

Preschool-aged children should do physical activity every day throughout the day for healthy growth and development. Starting at age six, children and ado- an assistant professor in the Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Minnesota. He specializes craniofacial skull base surgery. He attended Howard University College of Dentistry (DDS) and Ohio State University (MD), and came to Minnesota for his fellowship in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery. Besides medicine, he is a retired Minnesota National Guardsman achieving the rank of major general. His passion today is empowering students of color to achieve their dreams of entering the medical professions as well as other STEM-oriented careers.