Therefore, it becomes critical to understand why African-American women do not reap the same benefit from early detection as other ethnic groups. One interesting element is that African-American women are less likely to have mammograms than white women. In addition, even African-American women who have mammograms may do so less frequently than white women, so that longer periods of time pass between screenings (Landau, 2012). However, fewer and less frequent mammograms do not fully explain the problems. Furthermore, "Once a woman receives abnormal mammography results, it takes longer for her to get a diagnosis if she's black than if she's white" (Landau, 2012). Therefore, increasing mammograms and their frequency should help reduce the death rate, but the lack of access and use of them is probably linked to financial factors given the link between race and socio-economic status.

One element that cannot...

"Black women more commonly have subtypes of tumors that are harder to treat, especially a kind called triple negative breast cancer" (Landau, 2012). However, rather than looking at this increased genetic risk as an unavoidable negative, this information could be used to help promote screening and stress the importance of accurate screening guidelines.
References

American Cancer Society. (2013). Breast cancer. Retrieved February 15, 2013 from Cancer.org website: http://www.cancer.org/cancer/breastcancer/detailedguide/breast-cancer-risk-factors

Landau, E. (2012, November 14). CDC: Breast cancer more deadly in black women. Retrieved February 15, 2013 from CNN Health website: http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/14/cdc-breast-cancer-more-deadly-in-black-women/