A new study is actively recruiting men and women of African ancestry who were diagnosed with prostate or breast cancer to build a database from which researchers hope to identify genetic factors that may influence cancer risk among these groups.

Lifestyle is also a factor, smoking, drinking, and obesity are the top killers and disease risk factors, but those are epidemiology. What is compelling is why Black men and women in developed countries are at higher risk of developing and dying from aggressive prostate or breast cancer. There is no easy answer, anyone studying sociology will say it is socioeconomics, someone in the field of nutrition will blame McDonald's while environmental lawyers will say it must be PFAS. The government is slowly banning things people of color do, like Menthol vaping, with no evidence it helps anyone, which leaves genetics as the only scientifically determinable risk.

Scholars in the African Cancer Genome Registry at the University of Miami are seeking 200 people from the South Florida region and another 1,800 from Caribbean countries of the Bahamas, Barbados, Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. Additionally, they hope to recruit cases from the African nations of Benin, Burkina Faso, Kenya and Namibia. There is an argument for medical care as the culprit in deaths, though not in occurrences. Breast and prostate cancer are leading causes of cancer death in the Caribbean and Africa, with mortality rates for prostate cancer in the Caribbean among the highest worldwide.

The scholars believe the issue may have a cultural factor as well. Men may not want treatment due to side-effects.

Participants agree to provide saliva DNA or blood samples for genetic testing, tissue samples from a surgery or procedure, and complete a questionnaire covering behavioral, nutritional, medical, family cancer history and health-related quality-of-life information. Researchers will review participants’ medical records to cull data about tumor, staging, treatment and other relevant information.

Questionnaires won't provide much help, doctors know to double everything about alcohol consumption, but as an adjunct to science - how much more risk cigarettes, alcohol or obesity add - can prove insightful.