Money Chief Reason for Racial Differences in Mammography.

2001 JAN 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- In 1997, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers found that black women in eastern North Carolina were only about half as likely as white women to have undergone mammography. Also, doctors there were only about half as likely to recommend the potentially life-saving screening procedure to black women.

Now, a new study conducted by the same investigators shows that money - and to a lesser degree, the level of formal education women received - explained the racial differences. The scientists believe their findings are relevant to other parts of the United States.

"This information is important because to some extent we can deal with money issues," said Dr. Michael S. O'Malley, assistant director of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the UNCCH School of Medicine. "If it is chiefly a matter of cost, we may be able in some way to help black women overcome these financial barriers and increase their mammography rates."

A report on the new findings appears in the January 2000 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Along with O'Malley, the principal author was Dr. Jo Anne L. Earp, professor and chair of health behavior and health education at the UNC-CH School of Public Health. Earp directs the North Carolina Breast Cancer Screening Program of the U.S. National Cancer Institute-supported Specialized Program in Research Excellence in Breast Cancer at the Lineberger Center.

Researchers surveyed almost 2,000 black women and white women age 52 and older in 10 rural N.C. counties in 1993 and 1994. Interviews were conducted in the women's homes.

"Fifty-three percent of the women reported that a physician had ...