Statistics Canada researchers have released a new Health Reports paper, Understanding mortality differentials of Black adults in Canada, which attempts to explain mortality differences between Black and White adults by understanding the paths contributing to the mortality patterns observed in previous studies.
“To better understand why Black adults in Canada experience higher mortality risks for certain diseases, it is useful to examine the health events that occur before death, accounting for other known social determinants of health and other disease conditions,” they write. “Differences in diagnosis rates, disease severity and hospitalizations can provide insight into the factors driving the relatively higher mortality risks of Black adults.”
The statistics agency’s highly technical report looks at HIV/AIDS, diabetes, prostate cancer and uterine cancer. Among Black men, for example, the likelihood of being diagnosed with prostate cancer or dying from it was high compared with White men. “For example, after accounting for known social determinants of health, Black men were 68 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer and 19 per cent more likely to die from it,” the report’s researchers write.
Also among the findings, the report says Black women with uterine cancer had a survival rate that was two times lower than that of White women. “An additional analysis revealed that delayed diagnosis played a larger role in uterine cancer mortality among Black women (14.9 per cent) compared with White women (8.9 per cent). This suggests that improving early detection and timely treatment among Black women could help reduce survival gaps.”
