University’s awareness initiative keying cancer prevention

RALEIGH — Lacking access to healthcare isn’t the sole precursor to health disparities among minority communities.

A good bit of it comes down to awareness, Shaw University President and CEO Paulette Dillard explained during the “Cancer Moonshot Watch Party” Jan. 25  on campus in the Cowser Yancy Building.

Cancer Moonshot is about accelerating scientific discovery in cancer research. It was launched in 2016, when Joe Biden was the country’s vice president. He wanted to honor his son, Beau, who died from brain cancer in 2015. Biden dubbed the effort a moonshot in hopes of generating a decade’s worth of advances against cancer in five years.

Shaw University was a host site for the watch party, which was streamed live around the county. Barbara Powell-Jackson, the Gold Community Engagement Liaison at Shaw University, organized the watch party and others at historically Black colleges and universities.

The CEO Roundtable on Cancer and Shaw University are partners in improving health outcomes in minority communities. Leaders on college campuses are positioned to impact not only its employees but also the students.

“The collaborative work between our two organizations can serve as a model to build a national framework that educates minority communities, in particular, about cancer prevention, early detection and increasing access to clinical facilities,” Dillard said.

Konyin Adewumi is a data science fellow for CEO Roundtable on Cancer. She said Black women are diagnosed with breast cancer at lower rates than white women. Yet Black women have a higher breast-cancer mortality rate than their white counterparts, she said.

Black women are 41% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women, according to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Shaw University is the first HBCU to earn CEO Cancer Gold Standard status, which is an employer-led health-and-wellness accreditation program that provides a framework for organizations to have a healthier workforce by focusing on cancer-risk education, early detection and high-quality care.

The cancer-prevention message has to reach young people, and Shaw University is a catalyst for that, Dillard said.

Strategic partnerships can amplify that message, CEO Roundtable on Cancer spokesman Mark Slagle said.

“To combat inequities in cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment, it is essential we have partners on the ground in the communities that are most affected by these problems. That’s why our relationships with Shaw and other minority-serving institutions are so important,” Slagle said.

“Awareness provides an opportunity to educate, embrace and empower a person to make sound and informed decisions through tools of accessibility about options they may not have otherwise been exposed to,” Powell-Jackson said.