It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month and there will be pink ribbons and socks everywhere. You’ll likely be asked to donate at your local drugstore or mall. These things are all fine and you are welcome to donate and contribute to life saving research whenever, wherever, and however you see fit.

But, we’d like to call attention to a deeper issue within the breast cancer community. One that has been rarely highlighted but is slowly gaining traction – breast cancer disparities in Black women. 

First, let’s talk about disparities. Disparities are adverse differences in breast cancer outcomes among specific population groups, such as those characterized by race, ethnicity, religion, or nationality, socioeconomic status, age, sexual orientation, geography, or disability. Thus, disparities in breast cancer outcomes among Black women are largely due to systemic barriers as a result of racism. Research shows that Black women die more from breast cancer than white women.  

While research shows that disparities in breast cancer outcomes for Black women may be due to any number and combination of things (barriers in the social determinants of health, racism in the healthcare system, low quality of care, tumor biology, etc.), a fool-proof remedy to solve this problem has not yet been discovered. So, while the world goes pink for October, just remember that there are some fighting a different kind of breast cancer battle.