Artificial intelligence is increasingly used to help diagnose cancer, but new research shows those tools can mirror and magnify existing health disparities. An analysis of AI systems trained to read pathology slides found that nearly one in three cancer diagnostic tasks showed performance gaps tied to race, sex, or age, raising concerns about unequal care for minority patients.Researchers examined more than 28,000 pathology images from over 14,000 patients across 20 cancer types. While overall accuracy often appeared high, deeper analysis revealed that standard AI models performed unevenly across demographic groups. These disparities were traced in part to training datasets dominated…
Author: Disparity Matters
Bottom Line: Substantial racial and ethnic health disparities across the entire cancer continuum persist in the United States. Differences in cancer mortality vary more by level of education than by race, suggesting that the social determinants of health may have more impact than biology on whether someone dies from cancer. A free pdf of the Report is available at: https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac.70045
African Americans face Alzheimer’s disease at “roughly twice the rate” of White individuals, a disparity researchers link to unequal access to health care, differences in educational quality, biases in cognitive testing, and higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. A new analysis of African American brain tissue offers rare insight into how these inequities intersect with biology.Scientists examined post‑mortem prefrontal cortex samples from 207 African American donors, including 125 with autopsy‑confirmed Alzheimer’s. They identified numerous genes with altered activity, many never previously tied to the disease. The most striking finding was a “1.5‑fold increase in expression of the ADAMTS2 gene”…
Low-dose CT screening has been promoted as a way to cut lung cancer deaths, but new national data show that nearly 40% of Medicare patients with abnormal findings never receive the follow-up imaging or procedures recommended by guidelines. Only 59.7% got guideline-concordant care, while 32.3% had less intensive and 7.9% more intensive follow-up than advised, raising concerns about delayed diagnoses and eroded mortality benefits.Those shortfalls do not fall evenly. Less intensive follow-up was more likely for Black, Asian, and Hispanic patients, as well as current smokers and people undergoing baseline screening, with odds ratios ranging from 1.26 to 1.66 for…
Just 6 percent of clinical trials used to approve new drugs in the United States reflect the nation’s racial and ethnic makeup, a new analysis warns, and an “increasing trend” of underrepresentation is shutting Black and Hispanic patients out of the data that shapes modern medicine. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside and UC Irvine examined 341 pivotal trials conducted between 2017 and 2023 and found Black and Hispanic enrollment has declined since 2021, even as calls for equity in science and medicine have grown louder. Asian representation rose and white participation remained largely stable, widening the gap “Precision…
A decade-long study of Medicare beneficiaries reveals stark racial and regional disparities in major lower extremity amputation (MLEA) rates among older adults with diabetes. The research focused on the “diabetes belt,” a region in the southeastern U.S. with high diabetes prevalence, and found that Black patients living there are at significantly higher risk of losing limbs than their White counterparts.In 2006, Black patients in the diabetes belt experienced 8.5 amputations per 1,000, compared to 2.4 for White patients. By 2015, rates declined to 4.8 and 1.5 respectively, but the racial gap remained wide. Even after adjusting for health conditions and…
New York City’s latest HIV Surveillance Annual Report shows new HIV diagnoses inching up again, underscoring how the epidemic continues to fall hardest on Black and Latino communities despite decades of progress. In 2024, 1,791 people were newly diagnosed with HIV, a 5.4% increase from 2023, even as officials warn that “progress toward ending the HIV epidemic in New York City has slowed.”The data expose stark racial and neighborhood inequities. Among those newly diagnosed, 44% were Black and 41% were Latino, and 42% lived in high- or very high-poverty ZIP codes at the time of diagnosis, reinforcing how HIV risk…
For millions of women, uterine fibroids have long meant years of heavy bleeding, pain, and fatigue. New research shows the condition also carries serious consequences for heart health, adding another layer to persistent racial health disparities that already place Black women at higher risk.A large study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that women diagnosed with fibroids face an 81% higher long-term risk of cardiovascular disease than women without the condition. That elevated risk includes heart disease, stroke, and peripheral artery disease, and it appears across races and age groups. The burden, however, is not evenly…
In the United States, neonatal and infant mortality have fallen dramatically over the last century, yet “significant racial disparities in mortality and other important outcomes have persisted.” Black infants, in particular, continue to die at far higher rates than White infants, even when born with similar levels of risk. In 2023, the Black infant mortality rate was more than double that of White infants, and rates for American Indian/Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian infants were also higher.Researchers DeWayne M. Pursley and F. Sessions Cole argue that these gaps are not driven by biology but by “structural, institutional, individual, and internalized…
Black women in America are being murdered at drastically higher rates than other groups, revealing a severe and largely ignored public health emergency. Research by Tameka Gillum at The University of New Mexico shows that in 2020, Black women were killed at a rate of 11.6 per 100,000 people compared to three per 100,000 for white women. Wisconsin presented the most extreme disparity, where Black women faced 20 times greater risk than white women. The violence often comes from familiar sources. More than half of Black women murdered in 2020 were killed by current or former romantic partners, and 90…