Breast Cancer and HIV: The Race Correlation
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and like HIV Infection, breast cancer affects African American women’s health outcomes differently than white women’s health outcomes.
Across the board of health concerns, women of color face a greater likelihood of poorer health outcomes than white women. Recently, there has been more attention paid to understanding the reasons behind racial and ethnic differences in health status and access to care. Which is about time, since “poorer” health outcomes often mean some people are dying from an illness in far greater numbers than others. For example, rates of HIV infection in members of communities of color are grossly disproportionate to their representation in the general population and this disproportion is greater among women of color. While approximately half of the men recently diagnosed with HIV are non-white, 83% of women recently diagnosed with HIV are women of color in Massachusetts. [Download An Added Burden: The Impact of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic on Communities of Color in Massachusetts.] These disproportionate levels are also evident in rates of death among women of color such that HIV infection has become the leading cause of death for black women ages 25-34 years nationwide. This disparity of health outcomes for women of color does not rest with HIV infection alone.
Like HIV infection, all women are at risk for breast cancer, yet African American women with breast cancer are less likely than white women to survive 5 years post diagnosis. [Download Breast Cancer Facts & Figures, 2007-2008.] The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2008, 182,460 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. Next to lung cancer, breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, with estimates that 40,480 women will die from this disease this year. Incidence and death rates from breast cancer are lower among women of other racial and ethnic groups than among white and African American women. Despite higher incidence rates of breast cancer in white women, breast cancer death rates are lower among white women than among African American women.
There is current research to suggest why there are such negative health outcomes for African American women, but the bottom line is, like HIV infection, women of color are coming into care late and their health outcomes are significantly different than other women.
More: Read about an AIDS Action employee’s personal struggle with breast cancer.
