New cancer report shows Black people face higher mortality rates than white people
Mitchell Cornet’s job focuses on connecting the public with health education and services. Then he was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the age of 49.
“My work is all about early detection and screenings, and lo and behold, I’ve become the poster child of it,” Cornet, now 52, vice president of community strategic partnerships at Northwell Health, said at his New Hyde Park office.
Cornet is not alone. A new data report released Thursday by the American Cancer Society titled “Cancer statistics for African American and Black people, 2025,” estimates 1 in 6 Black men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime and 1 in 35 will die from it.
And researchers said Black people in the U.S. are still more likely to die from several forms of cancer than white people, even though their overall death rates from the disease are declining.
That includes higher mortality rates of prostate, lung and colon cancer for Black men, as well as breast, colon and uterine cancer for Black women, the report said.
“Cancer remains the second-leading cause of death in Black men and women after heart disease,” Dr. Wayne A.I. Frederick, interim CEO of the American Cancer Society, said during taped remarks about the report.
“Compared to white people, mortality rates are 16% higher in Black men despite just a 4% higher incidence, and unfortunately 10% higher for Black women despite a 9% power incidence of cancer,” Frederick said.
The report used cancer incidence data from 2017 to 2021 and mortality rates from 2018 to 2022 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute.
Nationally, about 208 Black men per 100,000 died from cancer, as opposed to 179 per 100,000 white men, the study said. About 144 out of 100,000 Black women died from cancer, while the rate for white women was 131 out of 100,000.
Frederick and others said the causes are complex, including:
Poor access to cancer screening and health care;, Reluctance to talk about a family history of illness;, Black people not being equally represented in clinical trials;, Years of unequal treatment in health care,.
“Effective treatment is still an issue in many parts of the country, sometimes related to being uninsured or not being able to get through the health system,” said Dr. Paolo Boffetta, associate director for Population Sciences at the Stony Brook Cancer Center. “When symptoms arise, it may be critical to get into the right care and get into treatment quickly.”
The lower a person’s socioeconomic status, the less access they have to quality health care, said Dr. Janna Andrews, chair of the Department of Radiation Medicine at Phelps Hospital in Westchester County. Health disparities can also be traced to deep-rooted discriminatory practices.
“Even if we are not necessarily conscious of implicit bias, we know that it exists,” Andrews said.
“Knowing that Blacks make up 40% of the population, why are you only seeing 4% enrollment on clinical trials?” she said. “We also know many Blacks have cancers that may be more aggressive, they may have more aggressive molecular characteristics … and how patients of color feel about clinical trials. We need to try to mitigate some of that mistrust.”
Boffetta said more representation of Black men and women in clinical trials will result in better treatments.
“The treatments that are being offered have been selected and developed mainly based on trials composed mainly of white people,” Boffetta said.
Andrews said she doesn’t want to detract from the important progress seen in the lower number of cancer cases and deaths, especially due to successful smoking cessation programs targeted to people of color. But more needs to be done, she said.
“We have to have those hard conversations about obesity and how obesity is related to cancer,” she said. “And keep in mind that 18% of Black people live below the poverty level and may not have access to healthy food.”
As he approached the age of 50, Cornet said he started thinking seriously about his health. That included taking steps to lose weight and checking his PSA count.
“I have three girls, and I want to walk them down the aisle when they get married,” Cornet said. “And my doctor told me if I wanted to do that, I needed to take care of myself.”
Cornet had surgery after a high PSA count and biopsy confirmed prostate cancer. He has recovered but continues to watch his health. Early detection of his cancer was key to successful treatment — a lesson he shares with others.
The rate of prostate cancer among Black men is about 191 out of 100,000 people. For white men, it’s 114 out of 100,000 people, according to the ACS.
“A lot of times, men say they are too busy [to get screened] because their focus is on work and their family,” Cornet said. “They wait until something isn’t right and then they go to the doctor and it’s usually a little late. If you catch it early enough, you have multiple options for treatment.”
Cornet also noted the history of skepticism from some Black men and women when it comes to seeing doctors and participating in clinical trials. He pointed to the infamous public health study on hundreds of Black men from 1932 to 1972 that withheld both their treatment and diagnosis of syphilis. More than 100 people died as a result.
“A lot of people still remember the Tuskegee experiment and don’t really have a wealth of trust when it comes to the health care industry in general,” he said. “We try hard to bring knowledge to these communities that what happened in the past is not happening currently.”
Mitchell Cornet’s job focuses on connecting the public with health education and services. Then he was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the age of 49.
“My work is all about early detection and screenings, and lo and behold, I’ve become the poster child of it,” Cornet, now 52, vice president of community strategic partnerships at Northwell Health, said at his New Hyde Park office.
Cornet is not alone. A new data report released Thursday by the American Cancer Society titled “Cancer statistics for African American and Black people, 2025,” estimates 1 in 6 Black men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime and 1 in 35 will die from it.
And researchers said Black people in the U.S. are still more likely to die from several forms of cancer than white people, even though their overall death rates from the disease are declining.
That includes higher mortality rates of prostate, lung and colon cancer for Black men, as well as breast, colon and uterine cancer for Black women, the report said.
“Cancer remains the second-leading cause of death in Black men and women after heart disease,” Dr. Wayne A.I. Frederick, interim CEO of the American Cancer Society, said during taped remarks about the report.
“Compared to white people, mortality rates are 16% higher in Black men despite just a 4% higher incidence, and unfortunately 10% higher for Black women despite a 9% power incidence of cancer,” Frederick said.
The report used cancer incidence data from 2017 to 2021 and mortality rates from 2018 to 2022 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute.
Behind the numbers
Nationally, about 208 Black men per 100,000 died from cancer, as opposed to 179 per 100,000 white men, the study said. About 144 out of 100,000 Black women died from cancer, while the rate for white women was 131 out of 100,000.
Frederick and others said the causes are complex, including:
- Poor access to cancer screening and health care;
- Reluctance to talk about a family history of illness;
- Black people not being equally represented in clinical trials;
- Years of unequal treatment in health care.
“Effective treatment is still an issue in many parts of the country, sometimes related to being uninsured or not being able to get through the health system,” said Dr. Paolo Boffetta, associate director for Population Sciences at the Stony Brook Cancer Center. “When symptoms arise, it may be critical to get into the right care and get into treatment quickly.”
The lower a person’s socioeconomic status, the less access they have to quality health care, said Dr. Janna Andrews, chair of the Department of Radiation Medicine at Phelps Hospital in Westchester County. Health disparities can also be traced to deep-rooted discriminatory practices.
“Even if we are not necessarily conscious of implicit bias, we know that it exists,” Andrews said.
“Knowing that Blacks make up 40% of the population, why are you only seeing 4% enrollment on clinical trials?” she said. “We also know many Blacks have cancers that may be more aggressive, they may have more aggressive molecular characteristics … and how patients of color feel about clinical trials. We need to try to mitigate some of that mistrust.”
Boffetta said more representation of Black men and women in clinical trials will result in better treatments.
“The treatments that are being offered have been selected and developed mainly based on trials composed mainly of white people,” Boffetta said.
Andrews said she doesn’t want to detract from the important progress seen in the lower number of cancer cases and deaths, especially due to successful smoking cessation programs targeted to people of color. But more needs to be done, she said.
“We have to have those hard conversations about obesity and how obesity is related to cancer,” she said. “And keep in mind that 18% of Black people live below the poverty level and may not have access to healthy food.”
A personal story
As he approached the age of 50, Cornet said he started thinking seriously about his health. That included taking steps to lose weight and checking his PSA count.
“I have three girls, and I want to walk them down the aisle when they get married,” Cornet said. “And my doctor told me if I wanted to do that, I needed to take care of myself.”
Cornet had surgery after a high PSA count and biopsy confirmed prostate cancer. He has recovered but continues to watch his health. Early detection of his cancer was key to successful treatment — a lesson he shares with others.
The rate of prostate cancer among Black men is about 191 out of 100,000 people. For white men, it’s 114 out of 100,000 people, according to the ACS.
“A lot of times, men say they are too busy [to get screened] because their focus is on work and their family,” Cornet said. “They wait until something isn’t right and then they go to the doctor and it’s usually a little late. If you catch it early enough, you have multiple options for treatment.”
Cornet also noted the history of skepticism from some Black men and women when it comes to seeing doctors and participating in clinical trials. He pointed to the infamous public health study on hundreds of Black men from 1932 to 1972 that withheld both their treatment and diagnosis of syphilis. More than 100 people died as a result.
“A lot of people still remember the Tuskegee experiment and don’t really have a wealth of trust when it comes to the health care industry in general,” he said. “We try hard to bring knowledge to these communities that what happened in the past is not happening currently.”
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