It has previously been found that the cancer death rates among black Americans remain higher compared to the rates among their white counterparts.
As per the latest report – Cancer Facts & Figures for African Americans 2007-2008 — black men had a 35 percent higher cancer death rate than white men, and black women had an 18 percent higher rate than white women, in 2003.
But, it is only in a recent study; cancer death has also been linked to ‘education’. It says that less educated people living in the US are more than twice likely to die from cancer compared to their better-educated counterparts.
Thus, education seems to be a more significant factor in determining the risk of cancer death risk than race! – although socioeconomic status as well as income levels play a vital role in ‘healthcare access’, especially in the US.
The study authors led by Jessica Albano, an ACS scientist said,
The number of factors could influence the association between education level and cancer death rate, including access to medical care associated with lack of health insurance; the prevalence of exposure to important risk factors such as cigarette smoking and obesity; and the likelihood of cancer screening utilization.
Challenging the long-standing trend that white women with more education suffer higher breast cancer risk owing to later child-bearing, the new study claims that breast cancer death rates were eventually found higher in less-educated women!
And black men with 12 years of school or less are more than twice at the risk of dying from prostate cancer in comparison to more educated black men.
Thus, ‘cancer death’ is also linked to education, not just race and socioeconomic status.
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