LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Several patients and their doctors went public on a virtual panel to tackle a big topic: racism in healthcare. During a Thursday night discussion, a group of experts in the medical field at UofL Health's Brown Cancer Center said disparities persist between races and ethnicities. Particularly, they discussed cancer treatment and clinical trials.

State Sen. Gerald Neal (D, Louisville) helped moderate the discussion, explaining Black Americans die from cancer at a greater rate than whites.

Several factors explain why that may be, such as "family history, social determinants such as race, environment, access to care...housing, income, insurance, and trust," said UofL Health's Dr. Wayne Tuckson. 

Clinical trial participation may be a key to gaining some equity, the panel concluded. There's a great participation gap, too. 

"Participation and access in clinical trials amongst African Americans remains low. Meaning that many are not benefiting from these new treatments," said Neal. 

“Clinical trials that fail to enroll a racially and ethnically diverse population means that these drugs may or may not help or worse yet may hurt this population," said UofL Health's Dr. Jason Chesney. 

Dr. Rebecca Redman further explained, “If you are a cancer patient being treated, you want to know that how you are being treated is based in large part by data and results generated by people who are like you. That is so important.”

Efforts are underway to include more people of color in trials, but there are other hurdles too, as one participant explained. LaRita Allen is a lung cancer patient participating in a clinical trial at the Brown Cancer Center.  

“One of the major things too is that participating in even when I decided to do my chemo, people looked at me as like I didn’t have faith in God. Like by me deciding to participate it was almost like, 'well where’s your faith?'" Allen said.