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African American Women and Breast Cancer: Interventions at Multiple Levels

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Handbook of African American Health

Abstract

Cancer of the breast is the second leading cause of cancer death among women in the USA (McGregor & Antoni, 2009), with over 200,000 cases diagnosed annually (National Cancer Institute, 2009). Approximately 40,460 women died of the disease in 2007 alone (American Cancer Society, 2009). Whereas white women are more likely than African American women to develop breast cancer (130.6 per 100,000 white women vs. 117.5 per 100,000 African American women), African American women are 37% more likely to die from the disease (Ries et al., 2008). Although a notable annual decline in aggregate breast cancer mortality has been registered for all women since the 1990s, the disparity ratio gap between African American and white women continues to widen. The gap is particularly pronounced among women younger than 50 years of age, with African American women of this age group being 77% more likely to die from the disease than their white counterparts (Carey et al., 2006).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Sarah Gehlert

  2. George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Eusebius Small & Sarah Bollinger

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  1. Sarah Gehlert
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  2. Eusebius Small
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  3. Sarah Bollinger
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Correspondence to Sarah Gehlert .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, Tenth Ave. 899, New York, 10019, New York, USA

    Anthony J. Lemelle

  2. , Sociology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State, Blacksburg, 24061, USA

    Wornie Reed

  3. , Sociology and Criminal Justice, Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta, 30314, Georgia, USA

    Sandra Taylor

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Gehlert, S., Small, E., Bollinger, S. (2011). African American Women and Breast Cancer: Interventions at Multiple Levels. In: Lemelle, A., Reed, W., Taylor, S. (eds) Handbook of African American Health. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9616-9_11

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