Every man should understand his prostate cancer risk. Here’s a path forward.
Advances in cancer prevention and treatment are only as powerful as our ability to deliver them to the people who need them most. In prostate cancer, awareness and progress have not yet produced equitable outcomes for every man.
Saving more lives requires ensuring that advances in prevention, early detection and precision medicine reach the men and communities carrying the greatest burden of this disease. That principle is central to the mission of Morehouse School of Medicine.
Prostate cancer provides a compelling example of why this work matters. When detected early, prostate cancer is highly treatable. Yet high-risk populations, such as Black men and military veterans in the United States, continue to experience disproportionately high rates of prostate cancer incidence and death.
These differences reflect a complex intersection of access to care, social and environmental conditions, and tumor biology. Addressing a problem this complex requires more than a single solution. It requires an ecosystem.
At Morehouse School of Medicine, we are building that ecosystem by connecting community-based prevention with scientific discovery and precision medicine.
Engagement, scientific discovery cannot exist separately
In 2023, we saw a critical gap in Atlanta’s prostate cancer prevention landscape: Too many men at greatest risk had few accessible pathways to routine screening, particularly outside traditional healthcare settings. Morehouse School of Medicine stepped into that void by launching the Prostate Cancer Precision Prevention Program, known as PCP3.
We built a community-based model that brings prostate cancer education, PSA screening and patient navigation directly to men rather than waiting for them to enter the healthcare system. Through partnerships with churches, employers, civic organizations and other trusted institutions, we meet men where they live, work, play and pray.
Since its launch, PCP3 has provided prostate cancer screening to more than 2,600 men. But the goal is not simply to perform more PSA tests. When an abnormal result is identified, navigation and connection to appropriate follow-up care are critical. Screening without a pathway to care does not achieve equity.
The same philosophy shapes our research. Morehouse School of Medicine investigators are using genetic ancestry, spatial biology and multi-omic technologies to understand why prostate cancer behaves differently among individuals, identify those at greatest risk for aggressive disease and determine which patients may benefit from specific therapies. This precision approach represents an important evolution in how we advance healthcare access optimization.
For decades, outcome variations research has helped identify differences in who develops disease and who dies from it. The next frontier must go further: understanding the biological, environmental and healthcare factors contributing to those differences and translating that knowledge into interventions. Precision medicine cannot fulfill its promise if the populations experiencing the greatest disease burden are not represented in the research used to develop tomorrow’s diagnostics and treatments.
That is why community engagement and scientific discovery cannot exist in separate lanes. The men participating in community screening, the patients contributing biospecimens to research, the scientists analyzing tumors in our laboratories and the clinicians translating discoveries into trials are all part of the same continuum.
At Morehouse School of Medicine, we believe the future of cancer prevention should connect these worlds. Imagine identifying a man at increased risk through community-based screening, ensuring that he receives timely follow-up care, understanding the molecular characteristics of his cancer and ultimately matching him with the treatment most likely to work for his particular disease. That is precision medicine with health outcome parity at its core. Achieving it will require partnership.
Accessible prevention, care and treatment are key
Academic institutions cannot do this alone. Healthcare systems, government, industry, faith communities, advocacy organizations and the communities we serve all have roles to play in building pathways from prevention to treatment.
Morehouse School of Medicine was founded more than 50 years ago with a mission to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities, increase the diversity of the health professional and scientific workforce, and address primary healthcare needs through programs in education, research and service.
Prostate cancer gives us an opportunity to put that mission into action — from the community to the laboratory to the clinic.
Every man should understand his prostate cancer risk and have an informed conversation with his healthcare provider about screening. But information alone is not enough. We must build a future in which where a man lives, his access to healthcare or his racial or ancestral background does not determine whether his cancer is detected early or whether he survives it. Achieving that future will require accessible prevention, timely follow-up care, inclusive research and equitable access to precision treatment.
Leanne Woods-Burnham, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Surgery at Morehouse School of Medicine.
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The opinions expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.