Black Patients With Cancer Still Have Higher Mortality Rates Than Whites

(HealthDay News) — Cancer mortality has decreased among Black Americans, but they still have elevated mortality rates compared with White Americans, according to a study published online in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

Anatu H. Saka, MPH, from the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, and colleagues compiled the most recent data on cancer incidence (through 2021), mortality (through 2022), survival, screening, and risk factors using population‐based data from the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for Black people in the United States.

The researchers note there will be about 248,470 new cancer cases and 73,240 cancer deaths among Black people in the United States in 2025. From 1991 to 2022, Black men experienced the largest relative decline in cancer mortality overall (49%) and in almost every 10-year age group, with decreases of 65% to 67% in those aged 40 to 59 years. The improvements mainly reflect historical reductions in smoking initiation in Black adolescents, treatment advances, and earlier detection for certain cancers. However, Black men had 16% higher mortality than White men during the most recent 5 years despite just a 4% higher incidence; Black women had 10% higher mortality despite a 9% lower incidence than White women. Larger inequalities for mortality than incidence reflect higher death rates for many cancers. The causes of ongoing disparities are multifactorial, but mainly stem from inequities in social determinants of health relating to structural racism.

“Future efforts must go beyond research to disentangle the influence of structural racism on health and actively develop mechanisms to reverse course,” the authors write.