Finding "Bright Spots": Using Multiple Measures to Examine Local-Area Racial Equity in Cancer Mortality Outcomes.

In this article, we present a variety of measures that quantify equity in cancer mortality outcomes, demonstrate how the measures perform with various cancer types, and identify counties, or "bright spots," that meet the criteria of those measures. Using county-level age-adjusted mortality rates for 2007-2016 from the National Center for Health Statistics, we identified counties that had both equitable and optimal outcomes for Black and White death rates across 5 types of cancer: cancers of the lung/bronchus, prostate, female breast, colorectum, and liver. The number of counties that met the criteria ranged from 0 to 442, depending on cancer type and measure used.

Are There Regional Differences in Triple Negative Breast Cancer among Non-Hispanic Black Women?

Background: Non-Hispanic black women (NHB) are diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) more often than other ethnic or racial groups in the United States (US). This study describes regional differences in TNBC incidence among NHB women in the US from 2011 to 2015.

Methods: We analyzed data from the United States Cancer Statistics (USCS) that includes incidence data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR) and the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) programs.

Are uninsured women in a national screening program having longer intervals between cervical cancer screening tests?

With increased understanding of the natural history of cervical cancer, cervical cancer screening recommendations have evolved (Schiffman & Wentzensen, 2013). As research better quantified the balance of benefits and harms of screening, new recommendations called for longer intervals between screening tests. Adherence to longer screening intervals detects similar numbers of abnormalities and decreases harms associated with overscreening/overtreatment.