National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15) is a time to celebrate the rich culture and history of Hispanic Americans. But it is also a time to recognize the disparities that Hispanic communities face when it comes to cancer.
For most U.S. racial and ethnic populations, heart disease is the leading cause of death, but cancer is number one for Hispanic people. The cancer screening rate is lower among Hispanic populations than for non-Hispanic white people, especially for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers. They are less likely to be diagnosed with cancer at a localized stage, particularly for melanoma of the skin and female breast cancer. And they tend to have higher prevalence of risk factors for cancer compared to non-Hispanic white people, including obesity, cigarette smoking, Type 2 diabetes, and physical inactivity.
The University of Colorado Cancer Center, through its Office of Community Outreach & Engagement (COE), works to address cancer disparities like these through advocacy, education, outreach, engagement, and community-engaged research. It recently introduced a mapping platform, called ECCO, to help track disparities and risk factors by ethnic group, geography, and other categories.
To take stock of cancer challenges facing Hispanic communities, and to learn more about efforts underway at the CU Cancer Center to address those challenges, we turned to Evelinn Borrayo, PhD, the cancer center’s associate director for community outreach and engagement and head of COE.
Image at top: The map, created by the CU Cancer Center's ECCO mapping platform, compares cancer mortality per 100,000 people among Hispanics in Colorado counties, based on a five-year average for for 2016-2020 . The darker the color, the higher the mortality rates. Dark blue signifies 165 to 188 annual cancer deaths per 100,000 people. Counties for which data are not available are shaded gray. Map courtesy CU Cancer Center.