Cancer rates stay highest for Black and Native Americans in U.S.

In 2022, the United States recorded 1,851,238 new cancer cases. Cancer deaths kept falling across the United States from 2001 through 2022, yet Black and American Indian or Alaska Native people still faced the highest cancer burden, even as overall mortality declined for women, men and children.

The latest Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer found that overall cancer incidence for both men and women was highest among non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native people during the 2017-2019 to 2021 period. White people had the next highest incidence rate, followed by Black people. In 2022, the national cancer mortality rate stood at 145.4 deaths per 100,000 men and women a year in 2019-2023 data.

The CDC ties higher cancer rates among American Indian and Alaska Native people in part to centuries of systemic racism and weaker access to health care, healthy food, education and employment opportunities. Cancer registry records misclassify more AI/AN patients than patients in other racial groups, which can underestimate how much cancer is affecting Native communities and make it harder to target screening and prevention where they are needed most.

In the American Cancer Society’s 2025 report on Black people’s cancer burden, cancer mortality fell 49% among Black men and 33% among Black women from 1991 to 2022. Black people still had a disproportionately high cancer burden and lower survival for almost every cancer type than White people from 2014 to 2020.