Public affairs Metastatic Breast Cancer: Iowa Updates By: Celeste Lawson O ctober is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and this article features information about breast cancer from an interview, conducted on September 13, 2021, with Dr. Mary Charlton, who is an epidemiologist and health services researcher at the University of Iowa College of Public Health, and is also the Director of the Iowa Cancer Registry. She has conducted numerous studies of risk factors, practice pattern variation, outcomes and health disparities related to cancer. Dr. Charlton is also a coauthor of Cancer in Iowa 2021. The following are excerpts from the interview. Celeste: It seems like Black women, and White women living in rural areas, have the highest death rates from metastatic breast cancer in Iowa. What contributes to that outcome? Dr. Charlton: I think…for Black women…I think we are talking about a really complex interaction of socioeconomic factors and biology. There is definitely a larger proportion of Black women who have triple-negative breast cancer, compared to White women, which is more aggressive and has the worst prognosis, including more recurrence and metastases to other parts of the body, and higher mortality, or death. So that, coupled with barriers to accessing high-quality healthcare…more lack of health insurance for Black women compared to White women…and what some would argue are health behaviors like not including screening, or not completing breast cancer
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