Gee, I wonder why
Cancer Deadlier for Poor, Minorities
By Karen Pallarito
HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, March 11 (HealthDayNews) -- Minorities and people living in poverty are still at greater risk of getting cancer and dying from it than whites and more affluent individuals, a new American Cancer Society study finds.
Blacks have the highest death rate from all cancers combined, with an annual death rate from cancer that is 40 percent higher for black men and 20 percent higher for black women than their white counterparts, the study found.
Being poor also boosts cancer death rates, regardless of race or ethnicity, researchers found. Men who live in poverty-stricken counties have a 13 percent higher death rate from all cancers combined, vs. men in richer counties. Cancer deaths are 3 percent higher for women in poor counties than for their more affluent counterparts.
The report appears in the March/April issue of CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
"The issue of how we can actually eliminate these disparities represents a very large and unresolved problem," says Dr. Michael Thun, head of epidemiology research at the American Cancer Society and a co-author of the paper.
