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• The Invisible People With Cancer Are Least Likely to Get Quality Care 

With mounting evidence that many Americans remain the invisible people with cancer who don't get regular screening examinations, smoke at higher rates, are frequently diagnosed after their cancer has spread and, therefore, die more frequently and more quickly from this disease, the Intercultural Cancer Council Caucus (ICCC) today issued a 12-step action plan outlining how the Administration and the U.S. Congress can begin to help those cancer patients who are falling through the cracks of the healthcare system.

In conjunction with ICC's 11th Biennial Symposium on Minorities, the Medically Underserved, & Cancer held in Washington, DC, the ICC Caucus released a new report -- From Awareness to Action: A Renewed Call to Eliminate the Unequal Burden of Cancer -- that provides realistic goals for helping racial and ethnic minorities, those living in rural areas, the elderly and the poor who remain at greatest risk for developing and dying from cancer. Issued as a nationwide call to action, the report states that unless more is done to address the unequal burden of cancer faced by ethnic minorities, the elderly and the poor, "disparities in cancer care will only increase over the next half-century."

The new report, designed to provide the most up-to-date information about disparities in cancer rates and death among the nation's medically underserved, finds that certain Americans remain largely invisible to the healthcare system and are the least likely to have access to quality cancer care at all points in the process -- from screenings and diagnosis to access to state-of-the-art cancer therapies and end-of-life palliative care. Specifically, the report reveals a widening gap in cancer care among American Indians and Alaskan Natives and those living in the out islands of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa and other Pacific Islands, who now have cancer incidence and death rates similar to third world countries. . . .

lung cancer is now the most common type of cancer death in eight of the nine Indian Health Service (IHS) Areas.

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