Study highlights possible causes of racial disparities in prostate cancer deaths

As in most such things, there are multiple factors.  One that I read about recently is that there is a genetic mutation found in many people with African roots which helps protects against malaria, but also makes men more likely to get prostate cancer.  So it is even more important to reduce the risk factors that we can influence.

 https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-09/w-shp090220.php

 

News Release 8-Sep-2020
Wiley

 New research provides insights on the potential causes of racial disparities in deaths following prostate cancer surgery. The findings are published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society (ACS).

Black men not only have a higher rate of developing prostate cancer compared with white men, but they're also more than twice as likely to die from the disease. Meanwhile, Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) have the lowest rates of death from prostate cancer among all races. 

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When the researchers adjusted for age and year of diagnosis, they observed that Blacks had a 51 percent higher death rate than whites, while AAPIs and Hispanics had 22 percent and 6 percent lower rates, respectively. After adjusting for all clinical factors and non-clinical factors, the Black-white survival disparity narrowed to being 20 percent higher for Blacks, while the AAPI-white disparity increased to being 35 percent lower for AAPIs. Adjusting for these factors had little effect on survival disparities between Hispanics and whites.

Of the factors included in the team's adjustments, education, median household income, and insurance status contributed the most to racial disparities. For example, if Blacks and whites had similar education levels, median household income, and insurance status, the survival disparity would decrease from 51 percent to 30 percent.

"Socioeconomic status and insurance status are all changeable factors. Unfortunately, the socioeconomic status inequality in the United States has continued to increase over the past decades," said Dr. Wen. "We hope our study findings can enhance public awareness that the racial survival difference, particularly between Black and white prostate patients, can be narrowed by erasing the racial inequities in socioeconomic status and health care. Effectively disseminating our findings to the public and policy makers is an important step towards this goal."