Another racial disparity.

Not only do black women with breast cancer learn of their illness later than whites, but a hospital-based study of more than 1,000 women who underwent mammography in 1996-1998 suggests that they more often receive inadequate communication of the test results. (1) Within six months after their mammogram, 15% of women had received inadequate communication about the result--that is, they had never been notified of it (13%) or they had been notified but could not accurately report it (2%). The proportion was significantly higher among blacks (21%) than among whites (11%), and this disparity was confirmed in analyses that controlled for socioeconomic, service-related, medical and psychosocial characteristics. Moreover, the odds of inadequate communication were elevated for black women with an abnormal test result (odds ratio, 1.9), but not for white women. According to the researchers, the "'real world' efficacy of mammography screening" appears to be "somewhat compromised" for black women.

(1.) Jones BA et al., Adequacy of communicating results from screening mammograms to African American and white women, American Journal of Public Health, 2007, 97(3):531-538.

FYI is compiled and written by Dore Hollander, executive editor of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.