Think Pinker

In a perfect world no one would die from breast cancer, but our worlds not perfect so each year there are deaths from breast cancer. More alarming, according to the Chicago Tribune is that African American women are more likely to die from breast cancer than white women. Why is that?

It wasn’t always like that. During the 1980’s African American women and white women had the same mortality rate (at least in the Chicago area). But since then there has been an alarming change in those numbers. Now African American women have a 116% higher mortality rate than white women.

It would be easy to say it’s a result of genetics but that would mean that during the 1980’s the numbers should have been relatively similar to what they are today. It’s not surprising that these alarming numbers resulted in a task force being formed to try to get to the bottom of what might be causing these numbers to change.

The task force determined that African American women were much less likely to have a mammogram done. They also concluded that even when they did those mammograms were inferior to those which white women received, resulting in a significant number of fewer cases being diagnosed with breast cancer and so therefore a significant number were not getting the treatment. But wait, it doesn’t end there. Even in those cases where they were diagnosed they do not receive the same quality of care.

That’s because many times African American women either do not have health care or have minimal health care and so they aren’t able to obtain the same type of medical care both in preventative care and in treatment for breast cancer.

It’s hoped that in the future we see these numbers improve. However, that will depend a great deal on what changes occur in the availability of health care. Only the future will tell.