Disaggregating the Effects of Race and Poverty on Breast Cancer Outcomes

Over the past 20 years, there has been an increasing racial disparity in breast cancer mortality (1) (Fig. 1). Although the mortality rates for African-American women have recently be-gun to fall, the rates for white women have fallen at a greater pace, meaning that the disparity between black and white women has continued to increase every year since 1981. Finding the true reasons for the disparity is important if we are to effec-tively reduce it. So often, our ability to see the truth in racial matters is obscured by our fear of dealing with the issue of race. Bradley et al. (2) take a giant step toward finding the truth in their study entitled “Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Breast Cancer Treatment and Survival.” Their study demonstrates that socioeconomic factors that act largely through and are associated with race are responsible for much of the disparity between black and white women. Many