Do black American or bi-racial children get head lice.
Here’s a common question we get asked, ” I want to know if black American or bi-racial children get head lice? I have been told that they can’t.”
Here is our answer as best we understand it.
Yes and no!
Head lice have to be highly adapted to their environment if they are going to thrive.
This means they have to be able to scoot around easily in human hair.
The shape of hair strands differ between different racial groups and this effects head lice.
Africans living in Africa get head lice that are highly adapted to living in hair with strands that are oval in cross section. The differences are small but they are significant.
Caucasians have round hair strands and have head lice that are adapted to this shape.
In North America most head lice seem to come from the Caucasian strain and thrive in children with round hair strands, that is mainly Caucasian and Hispanic children.
There are some cases of head lice in African American children but the pool of these head lice seems to be very much smaller and so the incidence of head lice is much lower.
We get plenty of reports of bi-racial children getting head lice so we have to assume that their hair is suitable for at least one, maybe both strains of head lice to prosper.
That is how we understand the situation from 7 years of observing head lice.