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Robert Turner is with his dad, Robert Turner, Sr. As a professor of sociology, the younger man is studying the significant portion of African American men who are caregivers. Ashley Milne-Tyte for NPR hide caption Robert Turner is with his dad, Robert Turner, Sr.

As a professor of sociology, the younger man is studying the significant portion of African American men who are caregivers. Robert Turner didn't expect the last 24 hours to go this way. His father, who's 85, ended up in the hospital overnight.



Turner has just picked him up and helped him into the car so he can take him back to the family home in Piscataway, New Jersey. Once he's back in the driveway of the house he grew up in, Turner eases his dad out of the car and with the help of their home health aide, supports him up the stairs and settles him into a chair in the living room. "It's good to be back from the hospital, right?" he asks his father, as the two sit eating ice cream together.

His dad agrees. Turner is one of a growing group: Black male caregivers . Almost 40 percent of caregivers of older adults are men, and a third of that group is Black.

But Black men face some issues other guys don't. One is their health: African-American men have the worst health outcomes of any group in the U.S.

They are less likely to be married than other caregivers, and more likely to be taking care of someone by themselves. As a group, they also deal with negative perceptions of who they are. "Black men in America, given our p.

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