New America Media
- African-American men avoid going to the doctor not because they don’t want to seek medical attention, but because they find the visits stressful and often unhelpful, a recent University of Michigan study shows.
“We tend to think they don’t want to go, when in fact it’s because they don’t have positive experiences,” said Dr. Derek Griffith, assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, the lead investigator of the study.
Researchers arrived at that conclusion after questioning 105, middle-aged African-American men from Detroit, Flint and Ypsilanti—three communities in Michigan with large black populations. The majority of the men said they disliked the tone physicians often used with them. They said they felt they were getting orders from their physicians, instead of being talked to as equals.
The men said they knew they needed to lose weight, change their eating habits and be more physically active before visiting the doctor. They were hoping that their doctors would help them figure out how to make those behavioral changes without sacrificing time with their spouses and children.
