A recent study published by the Wisconsin Medical Journal found that Wisconsin’s black residents are more likely to get cancer and die from it than are whites.

The analysis compared state and national statistics from 1996 to 2000, showing greater disparities in the Wisconsin five-year average cancer and death rates compared to the national five-year average for all cancer types.

When compared to their white counterparts, black men in Wisconsin are twice as likely to die from lung and prostate cancer and three times as likely to die from stomach cancer. Overall, African American males in Wisconsin experienced a 50 percent higher mortality rate than white males.

Disparities also exist for black women. Cervical cancer occurs in African American women in Wisconsin twice as frequently as in Caucasian women. The mortality rate for these minority women is triple the rate for white women.

However, the report gives no indication for the reason behind these differences.

“There’s probably a multitude of possibilities,” Mary Foote, a Madison epidemiologist and author of the study, said. “We really don’t know which one is the leading cause of cancer among blacks.”

The majority of researchers attribute the higher rates partly to socioeconomic problems. Minorities at the poverty level are generally not diagnosed in time to fight cancer because of health care inequalities. They have a lower access to doctors and health insurance. Theresa Duello, University of Wisconsin associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, said that consequently mortality rates are higher.

“Our nation has become more unequal socioeconomically,” she said. “This contributes to the widening of the gap in health care.”

Other possibilities include lifestyle behaviors, biological factors and cultural and regional differences.

“The issue is that some people have more bad health than others,” Duello said. “It is not unequal but inequitable.”

Duello added that health disparities especially stand out in Wisconsin because the state has less poverty, lower unemployment rates and higher levels of health insurance coverage.

“Actually, the disparities in Wisconsin are less than the rest of the nation…in all races,” she said.

However, Duello emphasized that different people have different health disparities.

“It is not just every race and ethnicity,” she added.

Foote’s purpose for writing the analysis was to inform health care professionals and all state residents about the problem surrounding minority health problems.

“I don’t think we’re informed enough. People look at Wisconsin as a completely white state,” she said.

Foote added that many minority groups, not just African Americans, need health care attention. The report concludes that cancer control programs must “address racial disparities and strive toward eliminating them.”

The National Institute of Health and the Centers for Disease Control released a similar report, entitled “Unequal Burden of Cancer,” in 1999 that showed the same trends at the national level.