Our new Black Health Equity strategy

Black Health Equity in Prostate Cancer

1 in 4 Black men will get prostate cancer, that's double the risk of other men. Despite this, there are huge disparities in treatment for Black men with prostate cancer. 

We've invested £42 million into the TRANSFORM research trial that aims to find the safest and most effective way to screen men for prostate cancer. At least 10% of those invited to participate in TRANSFORM will be Black men. Watch the video below to learn how, by finding his cancer early, Alfred has been able to carry on living a healthy life - including spending time with his grandchildren.

But, we urgently need new evidence to change national policy and improve prostate cancer outcomes for Black men. So, we've invested over £1.2 million in real-world evidence projects to provide timely answers so that we can improve care and reduce health inequalities in prostate cancer. 

The Black Health Equity Strategy

We've launched a Black Healthy Equity strategy to improve the experience and outcomes of Black men navigating prostate cancer. The strategy is composed of three missions: 

Mission 1: Black men diagnosed early

We’ll develop a responsive, impactful national network. This network will be a model example of tackling health inequity through community partnerships.

We’ll invest in understanding why prostate cancer is so often diagnosed at a late stage in Black men and what can be done to change this, starting in the West Midlands.

Mission 2: Treatment disparity eradicated 

We recognise that Black men have been reported to have early onset and aggressive disease, likely explained by genetic predisposition to aggressive disease. However, the outcomes of a prostate cancer diagnosis shouldn’t be worse for Black men because they don’t get the same access to treatment.

We must expand our understanding of Black men’s clinical experiences throughout their treatment journey and close the evidence gaps that currently exist.

Mission 3: Support is personalised, culturally informed, and improves quality of life

We need to make sure our existing and new support services (both delivered and commissioned) are culturally informed and personalised.

We’ll use what we know about Black men’s experiences when navigating prostate cancer to improve existing services and inform new services.

What We Aim To Achieve By 2030

Guided by our missions, we have three key aims that we want to achieve by 2030:

1) More Black men who have prostate cancer are being diagnosed at an earlier, curable stage.

2) More Black men will report feeling supported in making an informed decision about their treatment choice. 

3) More Black men are using available prostate cancer support services because they feel that they are culturally sensitive, personalised, and improve quality of life.