Boss Techie

Cervical cancer mortality rates for women in metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas of the United States, 1950–2007

Long-term trends in metropolitan and non-metropolitan disparities in cervical cancer mortality were generally similar for white and black women (Fig. 1). Despite consistently declining mortality rates, both white and black women in non-metropolitan areas experienced higher mortality risks than their metropolitan counterparts throughout 1969–2007. In both 1969 and 2007, white as well as black women in non-metropolitan areas had an approximately 24–29% higher cervical cancer mortality than their counterparts in metropolitan areas. Moreover, racial disparities in cervical cancer mortality remained marked, with black women experiencing at least two-fold higher risk of mortality than white women in both metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas throughout the period 1969–2007. Additionally, non-metropolitan black women had approximately three-fold higher cervical mortality than metropolitan white women throughout 1969–2007.

During 1950–2007, cervical cancer mortality decreased at 3.34% per year in metropolitan areas, significantly faster than the annual rate of decrease of 3.07% in non-metropolitan areas. Among the four race and urbanization groups, black women in metropolitan areas experienced the fastest decline in cervical cancer mortality during 1969–2007. The average annual rates of mortality decline were 3.68% for metropolitan black women, 3.15% for non-metropolitan black women, 2.63% for metropolitan white women, and 2.66% for non-metropolitan white women. Because of more rapid declines in mortality among black women, the black/white disparity in cervical cancer mortality narrowed over time in both metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas.

Could a new approach to defining persistent poverty actually hurt rural communities?

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Could a new approach to defining persistent poverty actually hurt rural communities?

A rural American small town with a two-lane paved road and a church steeple.

One of the federal government’s key indicators of economic distress – one that shows that rural counties are disproportionately suffering economically – is disguising persistent, intergenerational poverty that occurs in urban areas, a new study says.

In a detailed new report, the Economic Innovation Group (EIG) says that using counties as the unit of evaluation for “persistent poverty” means that poor urban neighborhoods get overlooked when their economic performance is averaged with more prosperous parts of an urban county.

The result is a picture of persistent poverty that skews rural.

That problem could be addressed by looking at persistent poverty in census tracts, a smaller geographic measure, rather than in the traditional focus on counties. Doing so, however, may have significant drawbacks. The Daily Yonder unpacks why switching from using counties to census tracts in order to define persistent poverty may hurt rural communities and their chances when competing for federal dollars.

Persistent poverty counties are ones where more than 20% of the population has lived below the federally defined poverty level for 30 years. The definition is important not just to those who study the economy; the definition also qualifies some localities for special federal support to help address long-term poverty.

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