Decreasing the rates of prostate cancer among black men may require improving access to routine health care, rather than increased education about the disease, a study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine suggests.
"African-American men were aware of their increased risk of prostate cancer, and they felt responsible for getting themselves to physicians for preventative care. But there were substantial barriers to their carrying out what they saw as being important," said the study's senior author, Dr. Paul A. Godley, associate professor of hematology and oncology in UNC's School of Medicine and Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Black men are more likely than white men to get prostate cancer, and their death rate from the disease is more than two times higher, according to the American Cancer Society. The study is published online March 12, 2007 in Cancer. Dr. James A. Talcott of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School is the lead author.
In a survey of black and white men in North Carolina who were recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, black men were more than twice as likely than white men to report getting their care at public clinics or emergency rooms, rather than a private physician's office.