. "2 The Burden of Cancer Among Ethnic Minority and the Medically Underserved Populations." The Unequal Burden of Cancer: An Assessment of NIH Research and Programs for Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 1999.
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does not currently provide reports regarding SES and cancer. Therefore, the discussion in this section is limited to patterns of disease according to the prevailing racial and ethnic classifications.
Cancer Incidence Among Ethnic Minorities
In the United States, African American males experience cancer approximately 15 percent more frequently than white men, according to SEER program data, and have the highest overall incidence of cancer among all racial groups (Miller et al., 1996). This trend is consistent when major sites of cancer (colon and rectum, lung and bronchus, prostate, and stomach) are examined (see Table 2-6). However, it is noteworthy that the incidence of lung cancer in 1992 among white men in Kentucky (111 per 100,000) was almost the same as that reported for African American men in the SEER program data. In Appalachian Kentucky, a region characterized by high poverty, the incidence of lung cancer among white males in 1992 was 127 per 100,000 (Gilbert Friedell, Director for Cancer Control, Kentucky Cancer Program, personal communication, 1998).
TABLE 2-6 Cancer Incidence at Selected Sites Among U.S. Men by Racial or Ethnic Group, Age Adjusted to 1970 U.S. Standardsa
b SEER program does not calculate incidence when fewer than 25 cases are reported.
c Includes medically underserved white, non-Hispanic males among whom the cancer incidence differs from that among the majority white, non-Hispanic population.
