Age, breast cancer and disparity in health knowledge and treatment

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the differences that younger, middle-aged, and older women with breast cancer experience, particularly in health knowledge and treatment. These differential experiences, in part, stem from our youth oriented culture. This ideology extends into medicine and can affect day-to-day medical practice. Differential experiences are, therefore, likely to result in inequality and disparity in health and in healthcare. It is argued that older women are less empowered than their younger counterparts to display the same degree of agency. This analysis has important implications for health care professionals in the treatment of older women with breast cancer.

Citation

Cox Hall, L. (2007), "Age, breast cancer and disparity in health knowledge and treatment", Jacobs Kronenfeld, J. (Ed.) Inequalities and Disparities in Health Care and Health: Concerns of Patients, Providers and Insurers (Research in the Sociology of Health Care, Vol. 25), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 277-306. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0275-4959(07)00012-9