Is It True That Black Men At Higher Risk From Prostate Cancer Than White Men? - By: Don Saunders

Data shows that African American men are more likely to die from prostate cancer than white men and most statisticians agree that the risk for black men is roughly two and a half times that of white men. Howver, is this data misleading?

The answer to this question might be found in a study carried out recently in North Carolina. The study looked at a group of 253 white men and 84 African Americans aged between 40 and 75 who were diagnosed with prostate cancer between 2001 and 2004.

The study considered several factors including, employment, family history, income, attitudes towards health care and health care providers, treatment, screening history, symptoms, the existence of other medical conditions, access to care and whether or not the men had health insurance.

The study found that 55 percent of the African Americans earned less than $40,000 a year in comparison to to 23 percent in the case of the white men. The study also found that African Americans were more likely to be educated to a lower standard, to have blue-collar jobs, to have other accompanying medical problems and to be unemployed because of illness or disability.

In addition the study found that only 3 percent of white men did not have medical insurance, in comparison to 8 percent of African Americans and that just over 30 percent of white men has some type of supplemental Medicare coverage, in comparison to 17 percent of African Americans.

One especially interesting finding from the study was the fact that both groups were well informed about both the risks of prostrate cancer and the need for treatment, but that the African Americans accepted greater responsibility for their own health and were not as likely to trust their doctors. Indeed many of the African Americans stated that they were suspicious of their doctors and felt that any advice given was more likely to be based on the cost of treatment than patient needs.

On the important question of screening, African Americans were less inclined to have regular check-ups, digital rectal examinations or prostate specific antigen (PSA) tests. The study also reported that African Americans were far more likely to have to ask for a PSA test than white men.

The study makes it clear that there is a marked different between the two groups that lies in the lack of early detection in African Americans and that this arises to a large degree from the fact that they do not have well established relationships with their doctors, have poor access to affordable and convenient health care and do not have adequate health insurance.

Clearly it is not easy to put numbers to a study of this type and further, and larger, studies will have to be carried out to quantify the differenced between black men and white men. Nevertheless, it seems that much of the difference does not lie in the fact that black men are more likely to develop prostate cancer but lies in the fact that they are more likely to die from the disease because of its was detected late.

If the gap between the two groups as far as the provision of healthcare were closed then the statistics could well look very different.

About the Author

ProstateProblemCenter.com provides information on prostate cancer from understanding prostate cancer treatment to the therapeutic use of prostate milking

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