Mississippi Delta Urgently Needs Better Cervical Cancer Care Black Women Dying at Greater Rates; Expand Services, Information
The Mississippi state and United Sates federal governments are failing to take steps to prevent cervical cancer deaths for Black women in the Mississippi Delta, the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative for Economic and Social Justice (SRBWI) and Human Rights Watch said in a report released today during cervical cancer awareness month. Cervical cancer is highly preventable and highly treatable, but experts estimate that 4,360 women died from the disease in 2024 in the United States, with a disproportionately higher number of Black women than white women.
The 94-page report, “No Excuse: Inadequate Cervical Cancer Prevention and Care for Black Women in the United States Mississippi Delta,” documents that state and federal policies and a lack of investment in prevention are failing to ensure Black women in the rural Mississippi Delta—a region with some of the worst health indicators and highest rates of poverty in the entire United States—have access to comprehensive, affordable, and equal reproductive healthcare services and information. Mississippi has the highest rate of cervical cancer deaths in the United States and Black women in the state are almost 1.5 times as likely to die of the disease as white women. Black women living in the largely rural Mississippi Delta area in the southern United States have an even greater risk of dying from the disease.
“Black women in the Mississippi Delta are dying at alarming rates from cervical cancer as a result of neglect and exclusion from the healthcare system,” said Oleta Garrett Fitzgerald, SRBWI Regional Administrator for State Lead Mississippi and the Director for the Children’s Defense Fund Southern Regional Office. “Structural racism, discrimination and entrenched inequality are driving these disparities, and our government is allowing them to thrive.”
For more information please contact, Sarah Bobrow-Williams, SRBWI Director of Participatory Research and Community Assets, sarah.bobrow@srbwi.org