When actor Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer last summer, it was a shock to many. His rise to mega stardom in movies like Black Panther and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom made him seem young, vibrant and with a long future ahead of him. Sadly, his fame was rising at the same time colon cancer was leading to his untimely death at age 43.
Boseman’s death was a wakeup call to many about the importance of routine screenings starting at age 45, or sooner if you have a family history or when experiencing symptoms — particularly for people of color, who face higher risk. Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in America, and Black Americans are 40 percent more likely to die from this disease than other racial/ethnic groups, according to the American Cancer Society.
At Penn Medicine, we understand that one wakeup call is not enough, and we are committed to doing more to reverse this cancer disparity. Each year, to ensure we are continuously focused on our patients, we establish system-wide Penn Medicine “team goals” for every domain of our mission. Last year, we included a system-wide goal to increase the number of Black patients who are up-to-date on their recommended colorectal cancer screenings. As you can read on Penn Medicine’s Service in Action site, it’s a cross-disciplinary effort that makes it easy to get this lifesaving test — with resources deployed from our primary care clinics to church parking lots to patients’ own cell phones.
Achieving success and improving health outcomes requires our collective efforts and we are proud to be engaged in this important work with our patients.
Read the full story — “Drive, Walk, Mail, Text: How to Connect Communities to Colorectal Cancer Screening” — to learn more.