USC Study Finds Black South Carolinians Dying of Cancer at Higher Rates

A new study by the University of South Carolina found that African-Americans in South Carolina are dying of cancer at higher rates than the rest of the nation and their white neighbors.

The study, done by USC’s Arnold School of Public Health, is published in the June issue of the journal Cancer.

The study looked at the mortality rate of people who have cancer, not at the rate at which they get cancer. For African-Americans, It found a higher death rate than whites in South Carolina and much higher rates than the national average.

Dr. James Hebert, lead author of the study, says he doesn’t know why the death rate is higher for blacks, but he does have some possible explanations.

“We know that African-Americans, when they’re diagnosed with a cancer of a particular size, tend to have a nastier cancer. We know African-Americans are diagnosed at younger ages with what we call hormone-sensitive cancers, like prostate and breast cancer. We also know that there are differences in the health care delivery system. South Carolina is a rural state, so there may be something to do with access to care that has to do with that. But those are all just guesses. Until we do some work, we won’t really know what’s driving these differences and they’re probably being driven by different things for different cancers,“ he says.

The study also looked at the cancer death rates by regions of the state and found that the Pee Dee had the highest rates, in most cases. For example, for all cancers in white women, the entire state had a death rate at or below the national average, except for the Pee Dee, which was higher than average. For black women, though, the death rate for the entire state was at least 10 percent higher, while it was more than 20 percent higher in parts of the Upstate, Pee Dee and Lowcountry.

The biggest racial differences were for prostate, oral and female breast cancers. The mortality rates for black South Carolinian were nearly twice those of whites.

Hebert says he also doesn’t know why different regions of the state have higher death rates. “So this is really the first step in trying to figure out where we might want to pinpoint resources that could be employed to answer those questions,“ he says.

This is the first study of its kind in the nation and was possible because South Carolina has the best data systems in the United States, Hebert says. 

Click Here to read the entire study