The American Cancer Society/Mike-E relationship is a unique one – the organization has partnered with Mike-E to take the anti-tobacco message to youth through spoken word and music. This is one of many ways The Society wants to convey the cancer prevention message to a diverse audience. To quote Linda Blount, national vice president of disparities at the Society, if Phillip Morris can find a way to reach this audience, so can we.

With that charge in mind, Mike-E has toured the country, visiting college campuses and encouraging students to quit smoking. Mike-E and AfroFlow are no doubt a crowd pleaser with a strong message. Enjoy this short video from the performance.

To view American Cancer Society/Mike-E PSAs, please visit the American Cancer Society YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/amercancersociety

Cultural sensitivity is equally important in crafting health messages. Different communities require different messaging to spark any change in health behaviors – what works for one community may not work for another, as our speakers today have demonstrated. Something as small as an image or tone has a stronger effect than we think, and with new avenues for dissemination, it is even more important that we as communicators are able to use new media effectively while sticking to the right message and the right audience.

In a little while, we will experience a new medium of conveying health messages to a specific population to motivate change– Hip-Hop. Stay tuned.

The Community Interventions session showcased programs that have been successful in reducing health disparities. One intervention of particular interest was geared towards reducing overweight and obesity in low income populations. The Center for Closing the Health Gap in Cincinnati, OH, carried out a childhood obesity awareness campaign in the city, teaching children how to eat healthy by encouraging them to maintain gardens. This was an interesting presentation following a news story this morning highlighting the importance of good nutrition in childhood to longevity (click here to read article). The center also intervenes in the community via faith and food initiatives, a strategy that is usually successful when combining health awareness with faith-based messages.

Another example of a successful community intervention occurred in New York City. According to a presentation by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, NY, New York City was successful in eliminating disparities on colorectal cancer screening through community interventions such as direct colonoscopy referral systems, a system which ensures that the primary care provider follows up a colonoscopy referral directly with a colonoscopy center. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene also established a task force and a clear policy goal to increase numbers of people getting screened, and eliminate disparities. Recent numbers in New York City show screening rates up by 66 percent, indicating the progress of this intervention. Outside organizations also deserve credit for this progress, including the American Cancer Society which covered 2,000 colonoscopies through this program.

Interventions that actually work exist, proving further that something can be done to reduce disparities. Of course, there will always be challenges and barriers, but the key is to keep trying and tailoring interventions till we find one that works. If you have any programs in your community that have worked, please feel free to leave a brief comment.

Hello and welcome to The Cancer Lens Blog. Our first post covers the general plenary session that just wrapped up a few minutes ago. If we walked away from the session with anything, it would be this simple yet profound short story Dr. Adewale Troutman, director of Louisville Metro Public Health and Wellness, presented to a packed auditorium. Dr. Troutman told us a story of two men fishing. While fishing, they spot a baby coming down the river. Shortly after the first baby comes a second baby. One of the men immediately jumps in to the rescue, but the other man turns around and starts running upstream. “What are you doing? I need you to help me in case there are more babies coming down the river!” The other man responds, saying “I need to go up there and see who’s throwing these babies into the river!”

How does this apply to achieving health equity? Well, we already know the facts – minorities and poor people are more likely to die from preventable (keyword – preventable) diseases. Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, shared one of many disturbing statistics – a study in 2000 showed that blacks were 4 times more likely to get definitive treatments 60 days (that’s three months) after initial consultation! We also already know that minorities and the poor are much less likely to consume the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables per day (5-9 servings), but if you look in the neighborhoods in which they reside, there are many fast food restaurants in sight.

So how do we achieve health equity for minorities and the poor? Not to make the answer seem so simple, but we need to run upstream and find solutions there too. We need to encourage African American women to NOT skip their yearly mammograms, especially now that we know that death rates from breast cancer in African American women are significantly higher than other groups. We need to advocate for policies that place fruits and vegetables within reach (both spatially and economically), especially now that we know there is a link between a healthy diet and reduced cancer risk. And most importantly, as the health care reform debate carries on, we need to ensure that everyone, including minorities and the poor, have access to quality health care, especially now that we know that minorities and the poor are less likely to receive recommended care.

Dr. Carolyn Barley Britton, president of the National Medical Association, presented findings from The Consensus Report of the National Medical Association (available at www.nmanet.org) to further enforce all that is stated above. She also stressed the importance of encouraging minority students to step into the world of medicine.

While cure is important, prevention is also key. We know that many diseases are preventable, and prevention solutions require going upstream. Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Insanity, in the case of achieving health equity, would be to use up all our energy and resources jumping into the river to save those babies.

Maybe cigarette manufacturers should include this on their pages. WARNING—this product, if used as directed, may kill you or cause you permanent disability due to lung cancer and heart disease. OK, ladies? If you’re a smoker, even if you don’t smoke while pregnant and who would, you significantly up the odds of a low birth weight baby. Now I ask you, what did the baby do to deserve this? But this can be avoided because guys, if you’re a regular smoker your sperm count could be below the amount required to conceive. If you can even get to that point: smoking has been linked to erectile dysfunction in men under 40.

So what would happen if we smokers could all stop smoking? Each year 10,000 lives would be saved. That’s thousands of grandmothers and grandfathers, hundreds of mothers/aunts and fathers/uncles and children who would have their parents around to babysit when they want to go out on a date. And, perhaps, they could make the baby that not smoking would allow them to. And don’t even think if you’ve been smoking a long time it doesn’t matter if you quit. It certainly does. According to the Surgeon General, if you’ve smoked a pack a day for 20 years and stop, then in nine months, the cilia in your lungs will regenerate, allowing your body to clean your lungs and reduce infection. One year after quitting, your risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker. Five years after quitting, your risk of stroke is reduced to that of a nonsmoker. Ten years after quitting, your chances of developing the lung cancer are about half that of someone who continues to smoke. Fifteen years after quitting, your risk of coronary heart disease is equal to that of a nonsmoker and your lungs will look like the lungs of someone who never smoked. Those are odds you can live with.

Tobacco is one of the most addictive substances available today. Certainly it’s the most addictive legal substance. It’s hard to quit. No, it’s really, really hard to quit. But if you truly believed the odds I mentioned earlier—if God told you those were the odds, wouldn’t you at least try to quit? Quitting smoking may be the toughest thing you’ll ever do. But doing so increases your chances of living into old age, working productively, being around to watch your grandchildren grow and being glad you don’t have emphysema, heart disease or lung cancer. If you could swing the odds in your favor why wouldn’t you? That’s what I did in Vegas counting cards at Black Jack. OK, so the big guys caught on eventually but I left with my winnings. You know that old saying “quit while you’re ahead”? In the Vegas world of smoking, quit while you have your health.

For more information on how to quit, go to the American Cancer Society’s web page at http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_10_13X_Guide_for_Quitting_Smoking.asp or log in to http://www.naquitline.org to find a quitline in your state.

Linda Blount, MPH
National Vice President, Health Disparities
The American Cancer Society