This week, SurvivorNet hosted a thought-provoking webcast for the marketing industry centered on the discussion around racial disparities in cancer care: “Close the Gap: How Marketers Can Reach Diverse Audiences & Reduce Racial Disparities in Cancer.”
SurvivorNet CEO, Steve Alperin, said of this important topic, “There's been a little bit of progress in the last 20 years…while there's been some progress, there was something about the idea that people of color die a lot more from cancer that we, as a company, thought: This is an everyone problem, and we have to do something about it."
Read MoreDisparities in Cancer
Dr. Brawley said, "Disparities mean that people are dying who don't need to die. We need to focus on prevention and risk reduction.” Dr. Smith pointed out that, "Minority patients do not receive great quality care when it comes to cancer management, and we know that end-of-life outcomes are very different as well."An ovarian cancer survivor, Marecya Burton, 29, was just 20 years old when she was diagnosed with the disease, and cited the need for better care for Black Americans. "The adequate care part is so important,” said Burton, who’s based in Baltimore, MD, and received care at Johns Hopkins. When she first went to the hospital with pain, prior to her diagnosis, they gave her pregnancy tests. Burton discussed the need for better questioning, too. "Having those people in the room with you….asking 'why' questions instead of 'how' and examining some of the barriers [that exist when it comes to care].”
Dr. Anita Johnson On How to Close the Gap
The Need for Representation
Dr. Smith hit the nail on the head when she said, "Representation matters.” She spoke about the differences between equality and equity and the need for greater equity in cancer care. A big part of the problem is first admitting it exists. Alperin said, “One is: Acknowledging that there's a problem. We have thousands of people who say: 'Thank you for telling a story with someone who looks like me.' I think that moves the needle a little bit.”
Alperin says he was at a breast cancer convention a few years ago in San Antonio, TX, and noted how few Black people there were there. Alperin spoke about "provider bias," when people are spoken to differently from their doctor.
Disparities in Care
The root of the disparity lies in several factors. Dr. Brawley said, "7% of black women and 2% of white women diagnosed with incurable breast cancer in Atlanta got no early treatment [according to one study]. One of the unfortunate things about healthcare is that doctors and hospitals lose money on every Medicare patient they take care of,” he said.
"About a quarter of all women who were supposed to be given 6 weeks of radiation after breast cancer took a break or stopped altogether,” said Dr. Brawley. “We have a substantial amount of Black cancer patients who don't get the surgery they need.”
Dr. Brawley noted that pathologists are overworked where Black patients go. “That's an institutional economic sort of racism. 87% of Blacks in the U.S. go to 15% of the hospitals in the U.S.,” he said.
Patient Stories Matter
The experts on the panel noted the importance of having clinicians that looked like their patients, too, and the need for clearer advertising. Dr. Brawley said, "We distort the image [of ovarian cancer] by putting too many young people in these ads. We don't want to say that only old women get ovarian cancer, but it is true that over 95% of women who get ovarian cancer are over the age of 45.”
Hearing from someone who looks like you be it in age demographic or race has a positive effect. SurvivorNet noted how 43% of cancer patients say they feel less anxious hearing from someone who has just been through a similar cancer journey.
"Stories have power," said Alperin. "They have the power to connect….some of these things we can do in the field as marketers [can affect change].”
Dr. Smith emphasized the importance of clear communication. "It comes down to communication,” she said. “It's the elephant in the room we want to ignore, but we should not. I have a patient with lung cancer and he and I were talking about the covid vaccine and if he was going to get it…he says to me 'no one has ever prioritized us before now all of sudden we are the priority. Because you are singled out this is not good; talk to me more about that.’ What are the underpinnings of mistrust in that particular patient? We can assume about Tuskegee and we can assume about Henrietta Lacks, but we need to have the conversation…" her patient eventually got the covid vaccine, "but not all of those conversations have been that successful."
What Can Marketers Do Now?
SurvivorNet said that in order to create change, marketers must:
- Allocate specific resources to diversity and inclusion
- Make crucial information more accessible
- Use patient stories to build trust
Dr. Brawley said that people need to have the perception that people care about them. Alperin added, "I think we can make great strides in education in ways we can't make great strides with policy.”
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