Why death haunts black lives.

In their article, Umberson et al. (1) demonstrate that African Americans are much more likely than whites to experience deaths in their immediate family circle, and that this elevated exposure to death occurs at virtually all stages of the life cycle. Differential exposure to bereavement by race is likely to contribute to long-standing black−white differentials with respect to health and socioeconomic status more generally. As the authors note, human well-being across a range of dimensions is well known to be adversely affected by exposure to the stress of bereavement.