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Cancer death rates higher in Black people than other racial groups: study

(Xinhua) 10:15, May 21, 2022

LOS ANGELES, May 20 (Xinhua) -- Black people had considerably higher rates of cancer death in 2019 than people in other racial and ethnic groups in the United States, according to a large epidemiologic study published on Thursday.

Researchers at the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) used death certificate data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics to analyze age-adjusted cancer death rates by age, sex, and cancer site among non-Hispanic Black people ages 20 and older in the United States.

They then compared cancer death rates in 2019 among Black people with those in other racial and ethnic groups.

The researchers found that from 1999 to 2019, rates of cancer deaths declined steadily among Black people in the United States.

However, Black men and women had higher rates of cancer death, both overall and for most cancer types, than white, Asian or Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Hispanic/Latino men and women, according to the study, published in JAMA Oncology.

"Even though there has been a decline in cancer mortality nationally among Black people, they continued to bear a higher cancer burden overall than all other racial and ethnic groups studied," said Wayne R. Lawrence of the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch in the NCI's Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, who led the study.

"The disparity in deaths likely reflects systemic and preventable barriers to getting quality care. Whether it's screening for cancer, timely diagnosis, or the receipt of proven treatments," Lawrence explained.

"Black individuals continue to have a delay in care or receive poorer care than their white counterparts," he said. 

(Web editor: Liang Jun, Bianji)

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