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How Diverse Communities Are Impacted by NSCLC

Several disparities, including overall healthcare access, can impact the prevalence of NSCLC in diverse communities.

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Transcript

00:00
If we don't have access to care, then it's obvious that we're going to be more likely to have disease because we're not
00:06
getting screened for a disease. [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:16
According to the American Cancer Society, Black men and white women are about 15% more likely to develop lung cancer than their counterparts.
00:23
So how do we care for diverse impacted communities? It's something that is very tricky. It's something I actually deal with a lot
00:30
as health care disparities and trying to be able to increase access. When you look at minority neighborhoods, at least in Southern California--
00:37
if I go to Long Beach, you look in Long Beach, what's in the area, you have all of these oil rigs. That contributes to air pollution.
00:44
Air pollution, when you inhale it, can cause inflammation, and likely is responsible for some of the abnormal cells that
00:53
end up getting made in your body as a result of that exposure. That can happen.
00:59
So you have to think about those things, right? You want to educate people on screening. You want to educate people on disease
01:06
so that they can understand why they need to go see the doctor. We know the areas in our country that have the highest--
01:15
perhaps the highest incidence of lung cancer. We see it year after year. So our effort is on targeting those geographic areas.
01:25
We can help identify those social determinants of care to help fill in those gaps.
01:32
Those areas have high incidence of lung cancer year after year because patient behavior doesn't change.
01:39
The environment doesn't change. And oftentimes, the health care systems there in that area,
01:45
they don't change. As health care providers, we have to answer the call to action together.
01:51
Lung cancer patients are living longer and living better because of early screening and comprehensive biomarker
01:59
testing. And, you know, Dr. Lee, I'd love to hear your experiences as well. You know, you're a cancer survivor.
02:06
And not just a cancer survivor, but you're a thriver. What advice do you give as someone who's literally been on both sides?
02:12
There's a perspective as a patient that I've got. And yes, I was quite young actually, so 16 years old, when I went through it. But I've worked with hundreds of patients.
02:20
I saw that there was a gap in our system currently. We have excellent support systems
02:27
when we're diagnosed, when we're going through treatment, for example. But post-treatment-- there's still a lag in terms of what can we do as cancer survivors to actually
02:37
empower ourselves to move forward boldly? The reality of it is we may not be that same person that we
02:43
were before we were diagnosed. But that doesn't limit us from being someone even better, from feeling better, from doing things better,
02:51
from moving on and forward in our lives in a much more powerful way. We have the ability to do a lot of things.
02:58
For example, our diet, our exercise, bring down the stress levels-- all of those things that we know can actually help
03:06
to decrease our cancer risk. It's not costly to go out for a walk, for example, on a daily basis.
03:13
And we can certainly come back to our lives again in a much stronger way as well. [MUSIC PLAYING]

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