The Healthcare Confidential Podcast | Episode 31 “Health Equity & Cancer with Ashley Brown”

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the US, and in honor of Dr. King’s lifelong commitment to achieving racial justice and equality, our episode today is focused on health equity. Here are some statistics to set the stage: Black women are 40% more likely to die of breast cancer than white women. African Americans have the highest death rate and shortest survival of any racial group in the US for most cancers. Access to healthcare, reliable transportation, and healthy foods affect people’s ability to prevent, find, treat or survive cancer.

Our guest, Ashley Brown, is Director of Health Equity and Stakeholder Engagement at the American Cancer Society. Ashley has been dedicated to serving marginalized populations throughout her career, a career that has included roles as Director at the Center for Global Policy Solutions and Program Coordinator for the National Collaborative for Health Equity. At the American Cancer Society, she leads health equity strategy, focusing on the integration of health equity into ACS’ policies, practices, and programs.

The Take-Away: At the micro level, providers need to make sure that they ask the right questions to encourage patients to share the barriers they may face to accessing care and be prepared to offer resources to help overcome those barriers. At the macro level, the health system needs to ensure that marginalized community members are involved at all levels of identifying, designing and implementing strategies to address inequities in the healthcare system.

Learn more: Learn more by visiting the American Cancer Society at cancer.org/healthequity.

Healthcare Confidential Podcast