The Journal of the South Carolina Medical Association240 PERSPECTIVES Breast and Cervical Cancer Disparities in SC: African-American Perspective

As the articles on breast and cervical cancer point out in detail, Af-rican-Americans suffer from high death rates in both of these can-cers.1,2 According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), disparities are determined and measured by three health statistics: incidence, mortality, and survival rates. Health disparities occur when one group of people has a higher incidence rate (e.g., in cervical cancer), when the mortality rate is higher, or the survival rate is lower than for another group. As in the case of breast cancer, health dispari-ties are found in a variety of other health outcomes that include: in-fectious diseases, asthma, infant mortality, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS. These diseases, and their causes, tend to cluster. Therefore, when a community has a high rate of one disease it tends to have high rates of the others, too. Many African-Americans are unfamiliar with the term “health dis-parities, ” but the impact that health disparities have on their commu