Racial Disparities in Mortality in the District of Columbia
Authors: Maryam Hashemian, Katherine M. Conners, Jungnam Joo, Rebeka Rafi, Gretell Henriquez Santos, Joseph J. Shearer, Marcus R. Andrews, Tiffany M. Powell-Wiley, Meredith S. Shiels, Véronique L. Roger
Journal: JAMA Network Open (2025)

Washington, District of Colombia (DC), has the largest gap in life expectancy between Black and White populations among major US cities. To investigate mortality, key modifiable cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, and temporal trends for non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White populations in Washington, DC, from 2000 to 2020. This cross-sectional study analyzed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research database for mortality and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System for the prevalence of risk factors (obesity, hypertension, diabetes, smoking, and hypercholesterolemia) among Black and White populations in Washington, DC, from 2000 to 2020. All analyses were conducted in January 2024. All-cause and cause-specific, age-adjusted mortality rates per 100 000 person-years, prevalence of risk factors, and corresponding rate ratios (RRs) and 95% CIs comparing Black individuals to White individuals were assessed. Average annual percentage change (AAPC) was examined using joinpoint regression. Among 102 710 deaths in Washington, DC (51 712 among males [50.3%], 26 100 among individuals aged ≥85 years [25.4%]; 82 308 among Black [80.1%] and 20 402 among White [19.9%] individuals), CVD (33 254 deaths [32.4%]) and cancer (22 677 deaths [22.1%]) accounted for more than half of deaths. All-cause mortality declined between 2000 and 2012 (AAPC, -2.6%; 95% CI, -4.5% to -1.9%), stagnated between 2012 and 2018, and increased between 2018 and 2020 (AAPC, 10.9%; 95% CI. 3.8% to 15.1%). CVD mortality declined between 2000 and 2011 (AAPC, -3.1%; 95% CI, -4.3% to -2.4%) and plateaued thereafter in the Black population, contrasting with the monotonic decline in the White population from 2000 to 2020 (AAPC, -4.7%; 95% CI, -5.3% to -4.1%), for a magnification of disparities from 2000 (RR, 1.5; 95% CI, 1.4 to 1.7) to 2020 (RR, 2.9; 95% CI, 2.5 to 3.3). Cancer mortality decreased from 2000 to 2020 but with a greater magnitude in the White (AAPC, -3.4%; 95% CI, -3.9% to -2.9%) than Black (AAPC, -1.8%; 95% CI, -2.2% to -1.4%) population (RR for 2000, 1.6; 95% CI, 1.4 to 1.8 and RR for 2020, 2.1; 95% CI, 1.8 to 2.4). Risk factors were consistently more prevalent in the Black than White population (eg, hypertension: RR, 2.2; 95% CI, 1.8 to 2.7 in 2001 and 2.3; 95% CI, 1.9-2.6 in 2019). Disparities as assessed by RRs increased for smoking (AAPC, 4.3%; 95% CI, 3.8% to 5.6%), decreased for obesity (AAPC, -1.2%; 95% CI, -1.9% to -0.4%), and remained constant for diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, and hypertension. In this study, all-cause, age-adjusted mortality was higher in the Black than White population, racial disparities worsened for CVD and cancer, and CVD risk factors were more prevalent in the Black population, underscoring the urgent need for precision public health interventions tailored toward high-risk populations.