Overview of Cancer Prevention and Control and African-Americans

Excerpt

Achieving health equity, eliminating disparities, and improving the health of all groups is one of the goals of Healthy People 2020 [1]. One subpopulation that can greatly benefit from the achievement of this goal is African-Americans. Life expectancy for African-Americans (74.3 years) is nearly 4 years less than that of whites (78.1 years). When gaps in life expectancy are examined by race and gender, differences are still apparent. Life expectancy for African-American women (77.4 years) is 3.4 years less than that of their white counterparts (80.8 years), while life expectancy for African-American men (70.9 years) is 5 years less than that of white men (75.9 years) [2]. …