Understand the Disparity: Why Are Breast Cancer Death Rates Higher for Black Women?

Why do Black women have higher rates of breast cancer than other women? That’s the core question being examined by Primary Care Medical Provider PA Marlene Taylor, an American Cancer Society (ACS) Voices Ambassador. And there is a role in this project for you, too!

“Black women have a 40% higher death rate from breast cancer than White women,” Taylor says. “And Black women have the lowest five-year survival rate from subtypes of breast cancer. We need to find out why that is.”

The ACS Voices of Black Women study aims to identify over the long-term the causes of cancer in Black women. There is a need for more data to improve the health of Black women for generations to come.

PA Taylor practices at Ryan Health | Adair and Frederick Douglass in Harlem, sites with the majority of our African American female patients. She and other ACS Ambassadors will help to collectively recruit up to 100,000 Black women in New York State, 19 other states and Washington DC. That is where many Black women live. Participants will be between the ages of 25 and 55 and have never been diagnosed with cancer. More than 2,000 women have already signed up nationwide to participate.

The study will cover a 30-year period and include filling out a questionnaire. The long timeframe for the study intends to create a solid historical record of data. The first questionnaire is the longest and most comprehensive and takes about an hour to fill out. It includes demographic and medical history questions. Follow-up surveys will occur twice a year and are much shorter. The information ACS is tracking is behavioral and environmental. It also includes some of your lived experiences, like health and lifestyle issues.

“Up to 30% of breast cancers may be preventable with changes in lifestyle,” Taylor says. “The Voices study will create a movement and cultivate commitment to health in Black women.”

The movement is step one — get women to schedule their mammograms now. Cultivating commitment is step two — beginning the conversation with other women about breast cancer and the need to focus on improving their health.

PA Taylor is talking to all her patients who fit the study parameters about participating. She is also asking her clinical colleagues at Ryan Health to do the same. But you don’t have to wait to be asked! If you would like to see if you are eligible, you can find info on the ACS Voices website or by using this QR code:

In addition to participating in the Voices breast cancer project, Ryan Health | Adair received a grant from ACS to increase breast cancer screenings. Team Members at Ryan Health | Adair will create a data-driven plan to improve our screening education and outreach.

Both projects aim to address the disparities in breast cancer for Black women. The only way to tackle inequities in healthcare is to identify specifically the reasons, develop strategies to address them and track the data to measure the impact our actions are having, as the grant will be continued into 2025.