Docs Fail to Find Breast Cancer in Black Women

By Kimberly Seals Allers

Editorial director, Black Maternal Health

Thursday, October 14, 2010

African American women are more likely than white women to die of breast cancer and to be diagnosed at later stages of the disease. Now a study, released during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, links this delay in diagnosis to race.

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The Most Staggering Disparity

The most staggering and disturbing disparity was among black and Hispanic women with government insurance. In that group, delay times were 11.9 days for white women, 39.4 days for black women and 70.8 days for Hispanics. Among women without insurance, times were 44.5 days for white women, 59.7 days for black women and 66.5 days for Hispanic women.

"We thought having health insurance would even the field among all women," researcher Heather Hoffman said in a statement. "Insured women should have had the same rapid evaluation regardless of race and ethnicity."

The study shows even further, the effects of race and ethnicity on a woman's health outcomes. And while researchers probe medical causes for these disparities, there must be a deeper dive into the systemic bias and racism that exists among medical professionals and health care providers.

Far from a level playing field, women of color are battling against forces they can't see or control to have equitable health care.

So, now what?

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Kimberly Seals Allers is an award-winning journalist and editorial director of the Black Maternal Health project at Women's eNews. A former senior editor at Essence and writer at Fortune, she is the founder of www.MochaManual.com, a parenting destination for African Americans, and author of "The Mocha Manual to a Fabulous Pregnancy" (Amistad/HarperCollins) and two other Mocha Manual books.