October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an international health campaign dedicated to promoting screening and reducing the risk of a disease that affects 2.3 million women worldwide.
According to Susan G. Komen, 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime — that’s one person every 2 minutes in the United States.
Thanks in part to programs and events like this month’s observance, which raise awareness and promote early detection, breast cancer deaths in the U.S. have dropped by 44% since 1989. NOW members know that when we encourage women to take action—by getting screened and staying informed—early detection and life-saving interventions can make all the difference. If caught early, breast cancer patients have a survival rate of more than 99%.
Yet the gap in mortality rates between Black and white women remains alarming. Black women have a roughly 40% higher death rate from breast cancer. Among women under 50, the disparity is even greater: Young women tend to have more aggressive cancers, and young Black women experience double the mortality rate of their white counterparts.
NOW supports expanding statewide cancer screening programs that are accessible and affordable for underserved populations, as well as investing in research and treatment initiatives that address the biological differences in breast cancer across racial and ethnic groups.
A groundbreaking study by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation found that Black women who didn’t get mammograms regularly are three times more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage (Stage 3 or 4) breast cancer than with Stage 1. Black women living below the federal poverty line are nearly twice as likely to receive a late-stage diagnosis.
Women are paying a terrible price for deeply rooted, generational, and institutionalized systems of race-based discrimination in health care.
Dr. Elizabeth Comen, a breast cancer specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in Manhattan, observes, “For as long as medicine has been a practice, women’s bodies have been treated like objects to be practiced on: examined and ignored, idealized and sexualized, shamed, subjugated, mutilated, and dismissed. The history of women’s healthcare is a story in which women themselves have too often been voiceless—a narrative instead written from the perspective of men who styled themselves as authorities on the female of the species, yet uninformed by women’s own voices, thoughts, fears, pain and experiences. The result is a cultural and societal legacy that continues to shape the (mis)treatment and care of women.”
As NOW members, we understand that raising awareness is only part of the challenge. We must change the conversation—and the culture—that perpetuates inequities in healthcare, research, and treatment.
During Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we recommit our energy and activism to saving lives and ensuring every woman has equal access to the care she needs and deserves.