The Centers for Disease Control released a report Tuesday showing nationally African-American death rates have gone down, but health disparities remain. 

The report shows the death rate for African-Americans fell 25 percent in the last 17 years, but their life expectancy is still four years shorter than white people’s.

Arizona Department of Health Services Director Cara Christ said the Arizona African-American death rate fell 19 percent in the same time. 

“Unfortunately there are still disparities between them and the white population and that’s something that we will continue to work on in Arizona,” Christ said.

While black people are up to nine times as likely as white people to die from HIV, there was a dramatic decrease of around 80 percent in HIV deaths among non-elderly blacks.

The study said blacks had nearly twice the rate of poverty and unemployment as whites, which could limit access to prevention and treatment of disease.

The report did find from 1999 to 2015, the death rate for African-Americans dropped 25 percent. But in most cases blacks are still more likely than whites to have chronic disease or die from heart disease and cancer.

Christ said Arizona does outreach to help bridge the health gap.

“Providing resources and services so that, not only are you providing the same level of services, but to at-risk groups you may be providing them more services to make sure they have health equality,” Christ said.

The CDC said the African-American death rate from homicide did not change in the 17 year study, and that young black people are nine times as likely as young whites to die from homicide.