Pap Smear Rates: Predictor of Cervical Cancer Mortality Disparity? (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION One purpose of health care is to reduce mortality from disease, accidents, and disasters. Disparity in mortality rates based on race and ethnicity is confounding in the present era of perceived equality. However, 2000-2004 data for Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, indicated a startling sevenfold increase in cervical cancer mortality for African-American women when compared to white women (Higginbotham, 2006). The Tuscaloosa County cervical cancer mortality rates during 2000-2004 revealed 3.27 per 100,000 of all women; 7.07 per 100,000 African-American women; and 1.40 per 100,000 of white women.