Chapter 8: Rural African American Older Adults and the Black Helping Tradition

SUMMARY By the year 2050, 21 percent of all Americans over 65 will be members of a minority group with African Americans being the largest subgroup. What is critical is that there are great disparities in the physical and mental health status, service availability, service access, and socioeconomic factors between elderly African Americans and elderly whites. These disparities are even more evident with older African Americans in rural communities. Along with these disparities, coupled with the “helping tradition” in the African American community, there has been a great reliance on community-based informal care systems for elderly African Americans. This chapter will examine the informal care systems in rural African American communities within the context of the helping tradition found within the African American cultural history. In this examination there will be a discussion of how the gaps in the social services delivery system in rural communities reinforce this helping tradition.