Health Equity

Pancreatic Cancer is a devastating enough blow for any individual or family to be dealt.  However, what if your chance of survival from this already dreadful disease was even lower just because of how much money you made, where you lived, or the color of your skin?

​

The World Health Organization calls the social determinants of health “the non-medical factors that influence health outcomes”.  These factors include income, ethnicity, and environment to name a few.   They define health equity as “the absence of unfair and avoidable or remediable differences in health among population groups.“

​

There are currently serious differences in pancreatic cancer treatment and outcomes for African Americans and other non-White ethnicities.  This article notes that “African Americans and Hispanics have lower rates of surgical resection, are more likely to be treated at low volume hospitals, and often experience higher rates of morbidity and mortality compared to White patients.”   African Americans have the highest mortality rate of any racial and ethnic group for all cancers combined and for most major cancers, as noted by the Office of Minority Health.

​

For pancreatic cancer specifically: while the 5 year survival rate for White men is already incredibly low at 9.5%, the survival rate for African American men is even lower at an abysmal 7.7%.  

​

Studies have shown that health disparities for pancreatic cancer including race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, insurance status, and environment, can affect early identification, treatment, recovery, and mortality from this disease. 

​

This disparity is absolutely not acceptable.  The Scott Eli Jackson Foundation is passionate and dedicated to resolving this disparity through grassroots involvement and education to low income neighborhoods and racially diverse communities.  We support families going through this journey with community, care packages, resources, and information.  By providing nutritional support, education, advocacy, to vulnerable communities we hope to increase early detection of pancreatic cancer and ultimately save lives.