Minority groups have been traditionally overexposed to occupational respiratory hazards. In addition, the effects of many of these toxic dusts are exaggerated by smoking. Of the 16,432 AIDS related deaths in 1998, almost 34 percent were in African American men, and 15 percent were in African American women. AIDS is the leading cause of death in African Americans aged 25-44. Because the HIV infection weakens the immune system, the higher incidence of opportunistic diseases such as tuberculosis and pneumocystis carinii pneumonia can be linked to the increase in HIV cases.
Sarcoidosis is a disease of the lungs in which small areas of inflamed cells, granulomas, appear.
It affects African Americans more than whites in the United States, and the disease is usually more severe in African Americans than whites. The prevalence of sarcoidosis is more than eight times greater in African Americans than whites. Although sarcoidosis is not a common cause of death, in 1998 the mortality rate for African Americans was 12 times greater than for whites. Sarcoidosis also reduces a person's reactivity to tuberculin, the active factor in the common skin test for tuberculosis. It therefore affects a person's lung health by making a tuberculosis infection more difficult to detect.