Understanding
Cancer Health Disparities

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Question 1 of 5
  1. Incidence and mortality from prostate cancer is 70 percent and 100 percent higher, respectively, in African American men compared with white men. But African American patients are substantially underrepresented in many clinical trials testing new therapeutics for prostate cancer.
    1. True
    2. False
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Question 2 of 5
  1. The incidence of tobacco-related invasive lung, bronchial, and tracheal cancers among residents living in the Southern United States is 40 percent higher compared to those living in the Western states.
    1. True
    2. False
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Question 3 of 5
  1. American Indian/Alaskan Native adults are twice as likely to develop liver and bile duct cancer as white adults.
    1. True
    2. False
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Question 4 of 5
  1. Hispanic women experience twice the rates of incidence and death from which of the following cancer types compared with white women?
    1. Breast cancer
    2. Stomach cancer
    3. Uterine cancer
    4. Blood cancer
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Question 5 of 5
  1. Patient navigation can help in reducing racial and ethnic disparities in cancer screening.
    1. True
    2. False
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Question 1 of 5
Answer: True
African Americans are the second largest racial and ethnic minority group in the United States, comprising about 13 percent of the U.S. population. For more than four decades, African Americans have had higher overall cancer incidence and death rates than all other racial and ethnic groups in the United States. An estimated 202,260 African Americans were diagnosed with cancer and 75,030 died from the disease in 2019 alone.

Prostate cancer incidence and mortality among African American men reflects one of the most striking examples of cancer-specific health disparities; African American men are more than 1.5 times as likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than two times as likely to die from it compared to men of any other race or ethnicity. Unfortunately, African Americans are underrepresented in clinical trials testing new therapeutics. For example, in two recent clinical trials of prostate cancer treatments, fewer than 10 percent of the patients were African American.
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Question 2 of 5
Answer: True
Incidence of invasive lung, bronchial, and tracheal cancers is 40 percent higher in the South than in the West. Concomitantly, prevalence of adult tobacco use in Southern states such as West Virginia, Kentucky, and Arkansas is more than twice that in California. Use of tobacco in the United States also differs widely by race, ethnicity, and other socioeconomic factors.
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Question 3 of 5
Answer: True
The American Indian/Alaskan Native population comprises about 1.7 percent of the U.S. population. When compared with whites, the overall cancer incidence and death rates for American Indian/Alaskan Natives are 14 percent and 10 percent lower, respectively. However, incidence and death rates for some types of cancer are significantly higher in this population. Disparities in liver cancer incidence and death rates between American Indians/Alaskan Natives and whites are particularly striking. These disparities are attributed in part to risk factors such as higher rates of exposure to risk factors for liver cancer such as HBV infection, HCV infection, chronic liver disease, obesity, alcohol consumption, smoking, and diabetes.
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Question 4 of 5
Answer: Stomach cancer
Hispanics comprise about 18 percent of the U.S. population and are the largest racial and ethnic minority population group in the United States. An additional 3.1 million Hispanic U.S. citizens live in Puerto Rico. The overall cancer incidence and death rates are 25 percent and 32 percent lower among Hispanics in the continental United States and Hawaii than among whites. However, incidence of, and deaths from, stomach cancer among the Hispanic population are, in general, higher than in the white population. Hispanic women experience twice the likelihood of stomach cancer incidence and death compared to white women, and Hispanic men exhibit higher incidence (61 percent) and death (98 percent) rates compared to white men.
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Question 5 of 5
Answer: True
The aim of cancer screening is to find an abnormality at the earliest possible time, so that it can be more easily treated or surgically removed. Racial and ethnic disparities in cancer screening rates are particularly striking for colorectal cancer, with one study estimating that differences in colorectal cancer screening rates are responsible for 19 percent of the disparity between the colorectal cancer death rates for African Americans and whites. Patient navigation can help in reducing racial and ethnic disparities in cancer screening. One example of how effective patient navigation can be at reducing disparities in colorectal cancer screening and outcomes is the cancer control program that was established in 2003 in Delaware. Through this program, colorectal cancer screening rates for African Americans rose from 48 percent in 2001 to 74 percent in 2009, which was equivalent to the screening rate for whites. During that time, disparities in the colorectal cancer incidence and death rates between African Americans and whites were almost eliminated.
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Thank you for participating in the American Association for Cancer Research's cancer health disparities quiz highlighting just some of the advances in the understanding of this important area of cancer research. Learn more about cancer disparities in the AACR Cancer Disparities Progress Report 2020.

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