Notice to Readers: National Minority Cancer Awareness Week --- April
17--23, 2000
National Minority Cancer Awareness Week, April 17--23, 2000, is dedicated to
increasing awareness among racial/ethnic minority groups regarding the importance of
early cancer detection. In 2000, an estimated 1,220,000 new cancer cases will be diagnosed
in the United States (1). Some minority populations have higher rates of cancer than
others (2); for example, blacks are more likely to develop and die from cancer than
persons of any other racial/ethnic group. Along with differences in incidence and mortality,
recent findings indicate that disparities exist among the five racial and ethnic
minority groups in health risk behaviors, such as cigarette smoking and use of clinical
preventive services including screening for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers
(3).
To improve cancer prevention and control within minority and underserved
populations, CDC and other federal, state, and nonprofit organizations encourage and
support various activities to reduce racial/ethnic disparities that include the following:
Eliminating barriers to cancer screening and early detection.
Implementing community-based education programs and outreach
initiatives that target and address specific needs of different racial/ethnic groups.
Tracking cancer rates among minority populations.
Increasing and improving research efforts that target minority and
underserved populations.
Recruiting members of minority groups into clinical trials.
Additional information about National Minority Cancer Awareness Week and
CDC's national cancer prevention and control efforts is available at http://www.cdc.gov/cancer.
References
Greenlee RT, Murray T, Bolden S, Wingo PA. Cancer statistics, 2000. CA: Cancer Clin 2000;50:7--11.
American Cancer Society. Cancer facts & figures 2000. Atlanta, Georgia: American
Cancer Society, 2000.
CDC. State-specific prevalence of selected health behaviors, by race and
ethnicity---Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 1997. MMWR 2000;49(no. SS-2).
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