Cancer in America Is Way Down, For the Wealthy Anyway

The good news is that cancer in America was beaten back over the 25 years ending 2016, with death rates plummeting, particularly when it comes to the four most common types of the dreaded affliction. From a report: There's a caveat, however. Those gains have been reaped mostly by the well-off. While racial disparities have begun to narrow, the impact of limited access to treatment for the poorest Americans has increased wealth-based inequality, according to the American Cancer Society's annual update on trends and statistics. 'Any time you have a disease as serious as cancer, when you have a substantial reduction in deaths, that's a notable achievement,' said Len Lichtenfeld, the interim chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society. 'But there are still a lot of areas for improvement.'

Health insurance and access to care can be an issue in some poor and rural portions of the country, where there are higher death rates of colon, cervical and lung cancers, according to Cancer Statistics 2019. While poverty was actually associated with lower rates of cancer mortality prior to the 1980s, that trend has since reversed, due in part to changes in diet and smoking as well as screening and treatment rates, the health organization said.

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