While the overall health of the nation has improved during the past two decades, striking disparities remain in the rate of illnesses and deaths experienced by racial and ethnic minorities:

• African American woman have the highest mortality rate from breast cancer, colorectal cancer and cervical cancer of all population groups.

• African American women had a maternal mortality rate 3 times higher than white women in 2000.

• Minority women are 2-3 times more likely than white, non-Hispanic women to have Type II diabetes.

• The AIDS rate for African American women is almost 4 times that for Hispanic women and almost 20 times that for white, non-Hispanic women.

*US Department of Health and Human Services, Report on Health of Minority Women, July 2003

*National Women’s Law Center, Making the Grade on Women’s Health, 2004