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Lack of Cancer Education Causes Desparate Deaths for African-Americans
by Aria White
NNPA Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON (NNPA) - Because of a lack of education on cancer and cancer-prevention in the African-American community, African-Americans are more likely than any other race or ethnicity to die from cancer, according to medical experts.
''The problem is that we don’t do enough of what works,” says Sanya Springfield, Ph.D., Director of the Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities, in an interview.
According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), African-American men are 35 percent more likely to die from cancer than White men and African-American women are 18 percent more likely to die from cancer than White women.
Cancer death disparities are top priority at the National Cancer Institute. The NCI's Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities tries to determine the cause for such health disparities in minorities.
''The difficulty lies in funding, there are plenty of models out there that work, there just aren’t enough of them,” Springfield says.
In addition to websites and special centers to solve this growing problem, the NCI is reaching out to the African-American community through social networks and organizations to spread the word about cancer education.
''African-Americans have a distrust of the healthcare system and that prevents them from getting tested,” Springfield says.
Research has shown that African-Americans are more likely to die from cancer because of economic and social gaps. African-Americans in a low economic status are less likely to detect cancer in the early stages, which increases the risk of death.
NCI has developed the Body & Soul initiative to help African-Americans and the cancer disparities affecting them. The initiative uses African-American churches to encourage African-Americans to eat more fruits and vegetables in order to fight off cancer and other illnesses.
NCI is announcing sites for the new Community Cancer Centers Program. About 40 percent of the funding for the project will go towards cancer health disparities.
Springfield says, ''Prevention and early detection are important, we don’t do enough for ourselves.”
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