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Physicians focus on hepatitis among African-Americans

Higher rate of infection, lower vaccination rates, reduced access to health care and poorer response to standard treatments create a crisis situation.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, amednews staff. Dec. 3, 2001.

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When Alpha T. Banks, MD, a Greenbelt, Md., hepatologist, sees an African-American patient with hepatitis C, she knows there is a good chance that the person has been infected longer than her Caucasian patients. African-Americans are more likely to have already developed cirrhosis, putting them at risk for liver cancer and related complications. And they are less likely to respond to standard treatments.

Hepatitis is increasingly being recognized as a serious issue in the African-American community. Rates of infection, particularly with hepatitis C, are high, and outcomes tend to be worse.

"Hepatitis has to be a priority," Dr. Banks said. African-American herself, she also runs the nonprofit Alpha Hepatology Institute, which is trying to raise awareness about this illness.

Few studies have looked into the exact cause for the disparities, but experts suspect that because African-Americans are less likely to be insured, they have less access to treatment for infection. They are also less likely to receive the hepatitis A and B vaccines.

"Even a person who has insurance may not get the vaccine because they may not be reimbursed," Dr. Banks said. "And it's a hassle because you need multiple doses. A lot of people start and then don't complete it."

A lower socioeconomic and educational status populationwide means more involvement in risky behaviors such as home tattooing, injection drug use or unprotected sex. Also, transfusions, such as for sickle cell anemia, may have been infected with the virus before screenings of the blood supply started in 1990. [...]