Efforts to address cancer care in Chicago must also take into account longstanding racial disparities that lead to delayed care and deaths, advocates said during a recent City Club of Chicago Event. [Health News Illinois]

Marie Lynn Miranda, chancellor at the University of Illinois Chicago, said that disparities are the “first, middle and last thing” they do when working on cancer care. She said their data shows that Black and Brown residents often do not receive the preemptive care, such as health screenings, like their white counterparts. 

“We implemented a program to do outreach through all kinds of community-based organizations to increase screening rates for breast cancer, and we stuck with it,” Miranda said. “It was a sustained effort, and through that effort there was a 20 percent decrease in the stage of diagnosis of breast cancer among women of color.”

Tawa Mitchell, a member of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Board of Trustees, said Black and Brown residents often aren’t able to access the latest therapies or treatments that could help them, in part because of disparity in insurance coverage.

“If a pill costs $400 to take to treat your cancer and it’s proven effective, but you can't afford it, then what good is that medication?” Mitchell asked.

She said their organization is working with state lawmakers to ensure there is parity in treatment coverage.

Dr. Edwin McDonald an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine, said it’s one thing to acknowledge the social determinants of health, but it’s important to take the next step and understand why they exist and how to address them.

Another challenge, he said, is the healthcare field has not done a good job of explaining what cancer is and its possible causes, which leads to confusion among patients.

“A lot of times, people that became at risk were living a life that was putting them at risk for disease, and they had no idea,” McDonald said.

Dr. Olusimbo Ige, commissioner of the city’s Department of Public Health, said conversations like the one held by the City Club of Chicago bring awareness to the issue, which is one major step to addressing it.

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