New diagnoses of prostate cancer occur more frequently in rural Appalachia, compared with urban areas in the same region. And in communities with long-standing social and economic disadvantages, the risk of cancer diagnoses and death is higher than in the general population.įor example, Black women are more likely than white women to die of breast cancer.
Why it mattersĭespite advances in detection and treatment, cancer remains the second-leading cause of death in the United States. We saw that these patients experienced fears of discrimination, a general discomfort with health care providers and more distrust of the health care system. Nonwhite women of low socioeconomic status also had lower cancer survival rates.
We found that sexual orientation and race influenced whether women chose to get screened for cancer or to take preventive treatments. And we found some studies that were about specific kinds of cancer, like cervical or breast. Examples include getting mammograms or a human papilloma virus vaccine. Most of the studies focused on what people did to prevent cancer or to check for it.
