Latinas face a barrage of obstacles to consistent screening and care.

Finding childcare and transportation for appointments can be challenging, cancer outreach leaders note. Patients often need to take buses to clinics and different locations for breast exams, mammograms and oncologist appointments, if a tumor is detected. And they can’t miss work without forgoing a paycheck.

“As Latina women, we tend to put ourselves last,” says Lourdes Barajas, Latinx lead community health associate at Cedars-Sinai’s Cancer Research Center for Health Equity.

With many people coming to the U.S. from Latin America, immigration status also plays a role. Immigrant women who lack permanent legal status in the U.S. are often too afraid to access preventive care they’re eligible for.

Cultural and language competency make a major difference for Latinx patients, says Zul Surani, associate director of Community Outreach, Engagement and Operations at the Cancer Research Center for Health Equity.

“While information on breast cancer is available, it’s often only in English and is not being delivered by a trusted source,” he says.

After abnormal mammogram findings, Latina women wait longer for follow-up care than white women—a median 60-day delay until diagnosis, one National Cancer Institute-funded study found.

“Culturally, sometimes people don’t want to know,” either because they’re afraid or don’t feel sick, Barajas says. “Or what if there is something wrong and they don’t have medical care?”

Treatment costs can be prohibitive for those in the community who live in survival mode. Latinos have the least healthcare coverage of any racial or ethnic group in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

And social factors, such as food access, affect cancer patients’ health during and after treatment, worsening disparities for this underserved community.

Racism and discrimination are also compounding issues, Figueiredo adds.