Cleveland health officials sounded a fresh alarm this week after new cancer data confirmed that the city is carrying a heavier breast cancer burden than both Ohio and the country as a whole. The Department of Public Health on Thursday released two data briefs that map where diagnoses and deaths are clustered and spotlight late-stage detection as a major reason more Clevelanders are dying. The goal, officials say, is to steer screening and prevention resources into the neighborhoods that need them most.
What the reports found
According to the Cleveland Department of Public Health, the city averaged about 321 new breast cancer diagnoses and 53 breast cancer deaths per year between 2018 and 2022. The brief notes a 13% relative decrease in age-adjusted incidence and a 23% relative drop in mortality between 2021 and 2022, but stresses that major gaps remain by race, age and neighborhood. The report links higher late-stage diagnoses among uninsured and Medicaid patients to worse outcomes.
How Cleveland compares to state and nation
The briefs say Cleveland’s age-adjusted breast cancer incidence and mortality are higher than both state and national averages. For context, National Cancer Institute SEER data put the U.S. female breast cancer incidence at about 130.8 per 100,000 (2018–2022) with a death rate of 19.2 per 100,000 (2019–2023). Ohio’s own surveillance summary, published as Breast Cancer in Ohio 2022, gives the state incidence at roughly 130.6 per 100,000 and mortality around 21.6 per 100,000 for earlier five-year windows, underscoring that Cleveland sits above both benchmarks.
Neighborhoods and racial gaps
The broader cancer brief from the Cleveland Department of Public Health maps the highest cancer incidence and mortality to neighborhoods including Lee-Harvard, Lee-Seville, Saint Clair-Superior, Union-Miles Park and Hough. That report notes about 45% of cancer cases were diagnosed after the disease had already spread, which likely contributes to Cleveland’s higher mortality compared with state and national figures. For breast cancer specifically, the briefs say non-Hispanic Black women carry a disproportionate share of both diagnoses and deaths, pointing to structural barriers to care.
What public health leaders are urging
The briefs list targeted screening, tobacco cessation, maintaining a healthy weight and faster follow-up after abnormal tests among the top strategies to reduce deaths. Those steps echo national guidance from the American Cancer Society, which emphasizes early detection and timely treatment. CDPH staff said they plan to use the data for neighborhood-level outreach and mobile screening efforts.
The full briefs, which include neighborhood maps and breakdowns by age, race and insurance, were posted by the department on its Facebook page and are available through the city’s public health data portal. Community groups, hospitals and clinicians say they will be watching how the city uses the findings to steer funding and outreach this year.
