(Aging Untold) — Cancer is the top killer in the United States, and Black women face the highest death rate and shortest survival of any racial or ethnic group.

In 2024, the American Cancer Society announced an ambitious study to help save more lives.

Statistics show Black women have an 8% lower cancer incidence than white women, but a 12% higher cancer mortality. Black women under age 50 are twice as likely to die of breast cancer than white women.

Study targets underrepresentation in research

The study, called Voices of Black Women, aims to enroll 100,000 Black women across 20 states and Washington, D.C. The locations were chosen because they are home to more than 90% of Black women in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society.

Doctors Lauren McCullough and Alpa Patel are co-leads on the effort.

According to researchers with the American Cancer Society, due to low numbers of Black women in previous studies, a lot of what is known about cancer may not be relevant to this population.

Building trust with communities

The American Cancer Society acknowledged it won’t be easy to reach the enrollment goal of 100,000 women, in part due to past inequities and mistreatment of Black communities in medical research and care.

The organization has found about a third of African American women say they’ve experienced racial discrimination at a health provider visit.

McCullough said the first step is understanding the perspectives and experiences of women and ensuring the study team is representative of the population.

“The second thing is really building trust with these communities,” McCullough said.

Radio personality joins study

Asia Chandler, a radio personality, decided to take part in the study. She said her cousin has breast cancer, her mom had a battle with stomach cancer and her aunt passed away in 1999 from cancer. Two of her best friends had double mastectomies.

“It seems like when the studies are done, they’re not people like me,” Chandler said. “They’re not done on women like myself. And so when trying to create a treatment plan, you don’t have the knowledge.”

As a public figure, Chandler plans to keep talking about the study both on the air and off.

“We need to use our Black voices. We need to be heard and we’ll do it together,” Chandler said.

‘You’re not a survivor, you’re a conqueror,’ Dr. Rogers says

Dr. Rhea Rogers, a board-certified physician and Aging Untold expert, is a cancer survivor and said cancer is a diagnosis, not a death sentence.

“As a physician, they can come to me, I can tell them what the textbook says about it,” Rogers said. “But now that I’ve lived it, I can walk with them in a different way.”

She called people who survive cancer “conquerors.”

“When you have that diagnosis of cancer, you’re not a survivor, you’re a conqueror,” Rogers said.

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Former hairstylist and nail tech battles lung cancer after decades of chemical exposure

For 35 years, Jeorgi Golden knew the ins and outs of the salon, working as a Black hairstylist where coworkers and clients became family. She started in the late 1970s, early 1980s.

Some of the women asked for everything from press and curls to hair relaxers or a Jheri Curl, a popular hairstyle at the time that gave coarse hair a curly, wet look.

She remembers when relaxers were her biggest seller, not just for women, but also for men.

The chemicals Golden breathed in daily may have cost her dearly.

Golden said salon workers in those days received minimal safety guidance about those products and how they should be applied. She said no one ever mentioned the dangers, even though formaldehyde was an ingredient found in those products.

Studies now show that toxic gas poses serious health risks to both consumers and salon workers, linking exposure to eye problems, respiratory issues, and even certain types of cancer.

Read the full article.

Popular beauty products marketed to Black women contain toxic formaldehyde

Sadie Johnson was in sixth grade when she started getting chemical treatments to straighten her hair.

For the next four decades, the Virginia resident endured scalp burns and sores every two weeks.

Johnson’s experience represents that of countless Black women who felt pressured to conform to imposed beauty standards in the 19th century through painful hair chemical treatments called “relaxers” sometimes referred as “perms” in the Black community.

Read the full article here.

Lawmakers propose bill to ban formaldehyde in hair products