Black women are pretty much 40% increased risk of dying from breast cancer than white women, but new research shows this applies to all forms of the disease — and examines why.
In the study, published Tuesday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers found that black women are at higher risk of dying all breast cancer tumor subtypesthe extent of this disparity varies from 17% to 50% depending on the type of breast cancer.
The study used data from 18 studies published between 2009 and 2022, analyzing a total of 228,885 cases of breast cancer, including 34,262 in black women.
“These findings underscore a stark reality in our health care system: Black women face higher risks of death from breast cancer compared to their white counterparts, regardless of the type of disease. This disparity is not just a matter of biology,” Paulette Chandler, study co-author and associate epidemiologist in the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said in a press release.
The authors found that contributing factors include socioeconomic inequality, diagnostic delays and inadequate access to timely, quality cancer treatment.
“Achieving equity requires action at multiple levels: from the community, to health systems and individual health care providers, to patients themselves learning about their disease and what they should expect from their care,” Erica Warner, lead author and a cancer epidemiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, said in the statement.
