Disparities in Cancer Care: Educational Initiatives

Excerpt

Disparities in cancer outcomes on the basis of race and ethnicity are well recognized. Socioeconomic status is an important cause of these disparities, but it is far from the only one. Although race is a social construct rather than a biologic one, genetic differences attributable to common ancestry do exist among racial groups. For example, African American women have a higher proportion of triple-negative breast cancers than white or Hispanic/Latina women, accounting for some but not all of the higher rate for breast cancer mortality in this population.¹ In contrast, Latina women often carry a genetic variant protective against breast cancer development, potentially explaining, at least in part, the lower rate of mortality in this group, which shares with African Americans a disproportionate burden of poverty.² Variations in screening quality and receipt of state-of-the-art treatment on the basis of race also occur, but even when treatment differences are eliminated through participation in clinical trials, higher death rates for African Americans persist for some but not all cancers.³ …