Dr. Woloszynska on the Role of Community Outreach in Addressing Disparities in Prostate Cancer

Anna Woloszynska, PhD, associate professor of oncology, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, graduate faculty member, State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, discusses the role of community outreach in addressing disparities in prostate cancer.

All health disparities, including racial disparities, represent complex problems in prostate cancer, Woloszynska says. Moreover, bridging these gaps requires multidisciplinary input from individuals beyond those doing active research on biological reasons for these disparities.

As such, community engagement is a critical aspect of addressing disparities in prostate cancer, Woloszynska explains. Community outreach can attract heterogeneous patient populations from underserved groups to studies investigating factors that create disparities. Moreover, because these populations who are affected by gaps in care are often those who do not seek care at academic centers, community engagement is critical to ensure these patients are not missed, Woloszynska says. Understanding the patients who remain in the community setting for care is important from a translational research perspective to ensure different types of patient samples are included in ongoing research efforts, Woloszynska concludes.