Mississippi state and the US federal government have neglected to protect Black women from cervical cancer deaths in the rural Mississippi Delta region, the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative for Economic and Social Justice (SRBWI)  and Human Rights Watch said in a report released Wednesday. The report states that “there are persistent and glaring racial disparities in rates of cervical cancer deaths in the US.”

The report documents published that as of 2022, “10.8 percent of the state’s population did not have health insurance” and in 2023, 18 percent of women were not insured, particularly women of color. Mississippi state had not expanded Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to cover adults with income below 138 percent. Human Rights Watch claims that Mississippi’s inability to expand Medicaid led to the discontinuation of rural hospitals and obstetrician-gynecologist shortages, decreasing medical personnel from preventing and treating cervical cancer, especially in vulnerable populations and in the Mississippi Delta where medical facilities are in short supply. Without affordable and accessible health insurance, black women experience difficulties obtaining adequate health services, such as cervical cancer screening and life-saving treatment, due to financial obstacles and hospital scarcity.

Cervical cancer deaths are one of the most common for American women with 4,320 women dying of the disease; however, death rates for black women are 65 percent higher than that of white women. In 2024, Mississippi was among the states with the highest black population. Despite this, black women are more likely to be diagnosed at a later stage and have lower survival rates.

Mississippi has one of the highest cervical cancer deaths, the worst access to health services, and the highest rates of poverty with one in five Mississippi residents in 2019 living in poverty, especially among black Americans. The US Commission on Civil Rights reported that Mississippi’s history with Jim Crow laws, racial segregation and wealth being distributed to the white minority are significant factors in the black population’s situation today. In 2024, Mississippi ranked the worst in women’s health according to Commonwealth Fund.