Black women die of breast cancer at the highest rate of any racial or ethnic group, 26.8 deaths per 100,000. Screening is not the reason: 73 percent of Black women 40 and older reported a breast cancer screening in the past two years, the highest share of any group. Five-year relative survival for Black women is 84 percent, the lowest of any group, and the survival deficit holds at every stage at which the cancer is found. The practical takeaways: insist on fast follow-up of any abnormal result, and know that triple-negative disease, which grows quickly between screens, is about twice as common in Black women.
Female breast cancer: new cases and deaths per 100,000, by group
Every group SEER publishes. Diagnosis rates for Black women sit near the national average; the death rate is the highest of any group.
| Race/ethnicity | New cases per 100,000 (2019-2023) | Deaths per 100,000 (2020-2024) |
|---|---|---|
Source: NCI SEER Cancer Stat Facts: Female Breast Cancer. Incidence from SEER 21 registries 2019-2023; mortality from US mortality data 2020-2024; both age-adjusted to the 2000 US standard population.
Triple-negative breast cancer, the subtype with the fewest targeted treatment options and the worst five-year survival of the four main subtypes (78.7 percent), accounts for about 1 in 5 breast cancers in Black women, roughly twice the share seen in every other group. In incidence terms that is 25.7 new triple-negative cases per 100,000 Black women per year, the highest rate of any group. It is also the subtype most likely to appear between regular screens, which is why acting quickly on a new lump matters even with a recent clear mammogram.
The direction of travel is good: the breast cancer death rate for Black women is falling 1.4 percent per year, the steepest decline of any group over the most recent decade. Survival for Black women diagnosed in 2014-2020 (84 percent at five years) is the strongest on record.
Methodology
The hero rate (26.8 deaths per 100,000, 2018-2022) is the American Cancer Society's published figure from Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2024-2025; the SEER table uses SEER's own more recent windows (incidence 2019-2023, mortality 2020-2024) and is transcribed cell for cell from the SEER Stat Facts page. ACS and SEER are separate series and are never mixed in one table here. All rates are age-adjusted per 100,000 women per year and cover female breast cancer only. Five-year relative survival (84 percent) describes women diagnosed 2014-2020 and lags the mortality data. The screening figure (73 percent, 2021) counts self-reported screening in the past two years among women 40 and older. Every figure was fetched from the cited primary document on July 28, 2026 and independently re-verified before publication.
Cite this page
APA
Black Health. (2026). Breast Cancer Mortality in Black Women. Black Health Data Hub. https://blackhealth.org/data/breast-cancer-mortality/
BibTeX
@misc{blackhealth_breastcancermortality_2026,
title = {Breast Cancer Mortality in Black Women},
author = {{Black Health}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://blackhealth.org/data/breast-cancer-mortality/},
note = {Accessed July 29, 2026}
}
Direct link
https://blackhealth.org/data/breast-cancer-mortality/
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License: Federal SEER and NCHS data public domain; American Cancer Society figures cited with attribution