✍🏾: @lexisryann
A new study suggests that Black women screening for breast cancer at age 42 helps lower racial disparities in breast cancer deaths.
“The current one-size-fits-all policy to screen the entire female population from a certain age may be neither fair nor equitable nor optimal,” researchers write in the study published in the JAMA Network Open.
Breast cancer is slightly less common among Black women in the U.S. than white women, yet they still have a 40% higher risk of dying due to early-onset breast cancer.
The researchers analyzed 415,277 breast cancer deaths in female patients in the U.S. from 2011 to 2020 in a dataset that included race and ethnicity to determine the age at which women of different races could start screening for breast cancer based on their risk.
The findings suggested that Black women should start screening at age 42; White women at 51; American Indian, Alaska Native, and Hispanic women at 57; and Asian or Pacific women at 61.
Keep in mind that these are just suggestions. Go earlier if you can! Advocate for yourself in these doctor’s offices and tell them that you want to be screened. Tag a friend and let them know that it’s time to do a screening! #BWLM💕
