Neena Satija Photo
The chief of Yale-New Haven’s new cancer hospital brought startling statistics — and a promise — to the NAACP’s Greater New Haven branch about the gap between how cancer affects African-Americans and the help they receive.
The branch had plenty to ask Dr. Thomas Lynch (pictured), Smilow Cancer Hospital’s Physician-in-Chief, at St. Luke’s Church on Whalley Avenue Thursday night.
Will the center create jobs? Hundreds, said Lynch, “from people who park cars to doctors.”
What about options for holistic therapy? There’s an office for that on the very first floor.
Is it easy to gain access? Your primary doctor can refer you or you can refer yourself, said Lynch; any problems, and you can contact me.
But much of the question-and-answer session following Lynch’s talk on “Health Equity Cancer Care, Past, Present, and Future” was punctuated by one pressing concern: How will you get those who may need the most help – who are often members of our community – to ask for it?
Prostate cancer, breast cancer, and lung cancer all disproportionately affect African Americans. Twice as many whites than blacks receive successful treatments for lung cancer, said Lynch. But while inequities in patient care and health insurance may be part of the reason, a large part may be due to a resistance to certain types of care, and to participation in clinical trials.
Last year, he said, 250 people participated in clinical trials with the Yale Cancer Center. Only three of them were African American.
“Poor communities [have] very little faith in Yale hospital,” said resident Thom Brown. He learned this while helping conduct a study of seven different New Haven communities for the Yale School of Public Health. “They were reluctant to talk to us initially because we were from Yale.” Engaging them with Yale institutions would be difficult.
In terms of Yale’s relationship with the community, Lynch acknowledged, “it’s better, but it’s got a long way to go.” And African-American communities have many reasons to distrust clinical trials — the historical example of the Tuskegee syphilis trials, for one, as well as the fact that researchers often only make attempts to reach out to historically underserved populations in the six months before they need to renew their five-year research grants. “We’ve got to be a 60-month cancer center, not a six-month cancer center.”
Paulette Merbane, a member of the area branch’s executive committee and a nurse, said she hopes the center will ask for help from faith-based institutions in the area, who could in turn help educate the community.
“Health literacy is an issue in this country,” she said, adding that faith-based institutions are often more powerful agents of change in the black community than some of its most vocal leaders. Despite her concerns, she said, she is thrilled about the promises of the center as a whole: “It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to New Haven.”
Asked if they or a loved one was directly affected by cancer, two-thirds of the audience raised their hands. Lynch spoke of Smilow’s new Center for Equity in Cancer Care, devoted solely to studying variations in cancer care and outcomes across different populations. He addressed more specific queries, such as how to differentiate between the advice of a urologist and a radiation oncologist.
The answer? At Smilow the patient will see both doctors at the same time, said Lynch. And they may even see a third doctor, who can act as a tiebreaker.
“We have to protect the ones we love, and sometimes that requires partnerships,” said Jim Rawlings, head of the area branch, who invited Lynch to the meeting. He said Lynch’s talk was the beginning of a long collaboration between the NAACP and the center.
“There are two kinds of meetings,” said Brown as many audience members mingled after the event was over. In the first kind, the audience says a quick “thank you” to the speaker and heads out. In the second, they stay and talk. “This was a good meeting.”