Nov. 17, 2014

Elderly Black Population to Double by 2050
By Frederick H. Lowe

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Blackmansstreet.Today

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The nation's senior-age African-American population will more than double as the entire country's population grows older.

In 2010, there were 3.5 million African Americans 65 years old and older and that number is expected to reach 10.6 million in 2050, Steven Wallace, Ph.D. and associate director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, told journalists in the 2014 Aging Fellows Program at the Gerontological Society of America’s GSA 2014 Annual Scientific Meeting Nov. 5-9 in Washington, D.C.

The growth in the elderly Black population is being attributed to better health care, the decline in heart disease, a decrease in smoking and positive changes in diet, said Wallace, chair and professor of the UCLA School of Public Health, Department of Community Health Sciences. In addition, Baby Boomers, or children born between 1946 and 1964, are entering old age.
The Administration on Aging, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, reported that in 2008, 50 percent of African-American elderly lived in New York, Florida, California, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois and Virginia.