From The National Women's Health Information Center

In the United States, there are more 147 million women, comprising over half of the total population. Nearly 30% are racial and ethnic minorities.

• African-American or Black women have a common African heritage. They may also have roots in the United States, Great Britain, the Caribbean or other countries. In 2000, slightly more than 18 million (18,193,005), or 12.7%, of all females living in the United States were African-American, not of Hispanic origin.
• Hispanic women, or Latinas, are a multiracial ethnic group, which means persons of Hispanic origin can be of any race. Many Hispanic or Latina women are recent immigrants. Most Hispanics or Latinas in the United States are of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican Republic, Central American, or South American descent. In 2000, Hispanic females of any race — numbering more than 17 million (17,114,023) — comprised approximately 12.5% of the U.S. female population.
• Asian-American women are women with origins in the Far East, including Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. The 5.3 million females (5,294,257) in this population group who are not of Hispanic origin comprised 3.7% of all U.S. females in 2000. Asian-American women account for 12.6 percent of all women of color.
• Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander women can originate from any one of 22 islands and may speak as many as 1,000 languages. In the 2000 census, more than 196,000 women in the United States identified themselves as Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander alone. When the census included Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander in combination with another racial group, the number rose to almost 435,000 women.
• American Indian/Alaska Native women are identified as being members of any of more than 556 federally recognized tribes as well as individuals from state-recognized or unrecognized tribal organizations. Major subgroups of this population are American Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts. Slightly more than 1 million females (1,241,974), or .87%, of all U.S. females belonged to this population group in 2000. (Note: Percentages of these populations may not equal 100 percent due to the rounding of numbers.)

Because of this diversity, minority women's access to health care, their health behaviors, and their health status can vary widely between and within these groups. For example:

• Except for African Americans 20-24 years old, African American women are more likely than White women to get breast cancer before age 40. However, they are less likely than White women to get breast cancer after age 40.
• Overall, the death rate from cervical cancer is 40 percent higher among Hispanic American/Latino women than non-Hispanic women.
• American Indian/Alaska Native women have 2.4 times the AIDS rate of non-Hispanic white women.
• In 2001, American Indian/Alaska Native women were 30 percent less likely to have breast cancer as non-Hispanic white women. American Indian Women were 1.9 times as likely to die from cervical cancer compared to white women.
• Among Asian American/Pacific Islander women:
  • high cholesterol rates are highest in Japanese women
  • cholesterol screening rates are low
  • High blood pressure is more of a problem for Filipino women
  • Blood pressure screening rates are much lower than other minority women
  • The risk of stroke is higher at ages 35-64 than for Whites.
  
  
  
  Last updated June 25, 2008
  
  
  

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