Barriers of Colorectal Cancer Screening African American, Research Paper Example

Introduction

The African Americans males have barriers to colorectal screening because of barriers such as lack of insurance, underrepresented in healthcare community, lack of education and fear of colorectal testing. One of the issues is African Americans are being diagnosed too late causing them to have a lower survival rate.  According to Bass et al. (2010) found five themes that contributed to the barriers of African Americans being the leading cause of death in the United States. The lack of testing and diagnosis tests, fear of tests such as colonoscopy and colorectal early testing, perception of the testing, lack of information about cancer testing and dislike of invasive test (Bass et al.,2010).

Background

This has been an alarming high increase rate in Colorectal cancer for African-Americans along with a lack of diagnostic testing and screening. The African-American male has the highest rate for being diagnosed with colorectal cancer and death rates more than any other race in the United States. This devastating disease is the third most common cancer that kills African-Americans with over 141,000 cases each year(Mississippi,2003). The average age to start colorectal screening test for males is 50 years of age however, the African-American males have developed cases in their early forties, thus screening is required early.

The African-American male lack of CRC colorectal cancer screening become an issue because early detection and screening is an important factor in improving the survival rate. Consequently, the African-American remain severely underrepresented in cancer control program delivery and research. The population is at risk to further deaths because a lack of testing available for African American males and the other side is the lack of knowledge concerning colorectal cancer. Guindalini et al. (2015). There needs to be more intervention and solutions to reaching the African-American males community for aggressive testing measures (Resnicow et al.,2014). There is a need for more cancer research that discusses barriers to the testing early enough to detect the cancer before it becomes terminal (Varadan et al.,2015).

The historical background suggests that African-Americans are heading into a state of catastrophic consequences. According to the Prevent Cancer Foundation,2015, it is estimated that over 16,000 African American males will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer and over 7,000 will lose their life to this devastating disease. It is apparent that the epidemic of colorectal diagnosis and screening is imperative to find solutions that test African Americans at an early stage of their life.

Objectives

The objective is to find solutions that can slow down the process of African American males being the third most common cancer diagnosed and the leading cause of colorectal cancer death among African American men in the United States which accounts for 11% of all cancer deaths. The theory is that African-Americans are becoming an endangered race because they are dying in large numbers from colorectal cancer. In addition, the secondary reason is a lack of testing in the African American community. The primary objective is to determine why African American males are not trusting or believing in the Fecal Occult Blood Testing(FBOT) (Mary et al.,2014). The goal is to find out why African American males are not getting the CRC testing necessary to detect colorectal cancer in the early stages.

Methods

There are cross-sectional studies methods that are being used to report colorectal screening test however, over 45% of the African American males have never had the FOBT screening test. There were significant associations between history of cancer screening and perceived barriers and benefits to screening, depending on which test was under examination. There is more resource to support the late of testing and not enough studies to examine this phenomenon (Mary et al.,2014). The scientific industry is using descriptive statistics to analyze the screen results which indicate that most African-American males are being screen too late (Saluja et al.,2014). There are other methods for CRC screening for African American males that traditionally start at the age of 50; however, African American males are being found the colorectal cancer at the age of 40. The colonoscopy test can be a prelude to finding cancerous polys that help detect colorectal cancer symptoms (Rogers, Goodson and Foster,2015).

Results

The research results from the Sanders, Lander, Shuyu and Chi-Ren,2014 found a study performed called the Wellness for African Americans(WATCH). The research participants were 850 participants from the church groups that had the best convenience sampling of African American populations. The research provides validated the selection process of the African-American males which had the biggest population to be tested for colorectal cancer (Saluja et al.,2014). They set a criterion for those over 18 years of age to participate with a 66% response from the male church members. This was a large enough sample size to support thesis statement with strong quantitative proven results (Wheeler et al.,2014). The methods for finding participants included health fairs, church announcement and community recruitment concerning testing.  The results found that the African American males are not trusting of colorectal testing and their perception that the test is invasive and painful.

The research concerning African Americans and colorectal cancer screening confirmed that the African-American male does not see any benefits in early testing and detection because of learned behaviors concerning cancer.  In addition, the research found that many barriers for African American included not enough community collaboration for testing, uncomfortable testing procedures, and complex testing not understood and fear of cancer treatment that might be invasive physical and mentally. This research results provides a roadmap concerning all the barriers that should be addresses to meet the population needs. The results concluded and support the theory that African-American are being underserved concerning colorectal cancer. The purpose of this study was to examine perceptions of barriers and benefits to colorectal screening in a sample of the minority population that was predominately African-American.  The results found that the CDC historical information on African Americans with cancer supports the theory of the perception that African American males are being underserved. The research found that African Americans face many barriers on why they are not tested early for colorectal cancer (Bromley et al.,2015).

The results from Folasade et al. (2015) supported the theory that African American males have less resources for testing and they have other barriers such as health insurance, fear of the invasive test and a lack of education of cancer diagnostic testing. This journal article does some excellent research that offers social and cultural barriers that may skewed the number of reporting cases of underrepresentation because minorities report issues less often than Caucasians.

Conclusion

The results indicate that African-Americans remain severely underrepresented in cancer control program delivery and research. The stated reasons for the African American male not taking the lifesaving test is education, fear of the invasive test, lack of health insurance and not enough early colorectal testing to detect the deadly disease. The African American male is facing catastrophic future outcomes because they need testing earlier than any other race. The average age is 50 to be tested for the colorectal cancer screening however, African American is being diagnosis at age 40. The later testing of African American males indicate that they have a lower survival rate because the disease is detected after it has already spread though out the body.  There needs to be some innovative solutions that brings more education to African American communities to ensure they are tested early.

References

Bass, S., Gordon., Ruzek, S., Wolak, C., Ward, S., Paranjape, A., Lin, K., Meyer. & Ruggier, D. (2010). Perceptions of Colorectal Cancer Screening in Urban African American Clinic Patients: Differences by Gender and Screening Status.J Cancer Education. Doi 10.1007/s13187-010-0123-9

Bromley, E. G., May, F. P., Federer, L., Spiegel, B. M., & van Oijen, M. G. (2015). Review: Explaining persistent under-use of colonoscopic cancer screening in African Americans: A systematic review. Preventive Medicine, 7140-48. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2014.11.022

Folasade P May, Christopher V Almario, Ninez Ponce and Brennan M R Spiegel, (2015). Racial Minorities Are More Likely Than Whites to Report Lack of Provider Recommendation for Colon Cancer Screening. The American Journal of Gastroenterology, |doi:10.1038/ajg.2015.138

Guindalini, R. C., Win, A. K., Gulden, C., Lindor, N. M., Newcomb, P. A., Haile, R. W., & Kupfer, S. S. (2015). Original Research: Mutation Spectrum and Risk of Colorectal Cancer in African American Families with Lynch Syndrome. Gastroenterology, 1491446-1453. doi:10.1053/j.gastro.2015.07.052

Mary, F. P., Bromley, E. G., Reid, M. W., Baek, M., Yoon, J., Cohen, E., & … Spiegel, B. M. (2014). Original article: Low uptake of colorectal cancer screening among African Americans in an integrated Veterans Affairs health care network. Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, 80291-298. doi:10.1016/j.gie.2014.01.045

Mississippi Department of Health. (2003). What African-American needs to know about colorectal cancer. Retrieved from http://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/resources/2043.pdf

Resnicow, K., Zhou, Y., Hawley, S., Jimbo, M., Ruffin, M. T., Davis, R. E., & … Lafata, J. E. (2014). Intervention: Communication preference moderates the effect of a tailored intervention to increase colorectal cancer screening among African Americans. Patient Education and Counseling, 97370-375. doi:10.1016/j.pec.2014.08.013

Rogers, C. R., Goodson, P., & Foster, M. J. (2015). Factors Associated with Colorectal Cancer Screening among Younger African American Men: A Systematic Review. Journal of Health Disparities Research & Practice, 8(3), 133-157.

Saluja, S., Alatise, O. I., Adewale, A., Misholy, J., Chou, J., Gonen, M., & … Kingham, T. P. (2014). Society of University Surgeons: A comparison of colorectal cancer in Nigerian and North American patients: Is the cancer biology different? Surgery, 156305-310. doi:10.1016/j.surg.2014.03.036

Varadan, V., Singh, S., Nosrati, A., Ravi, L., Lutterbaugh, J., Barnholtz-Sloan, J. S., & … Guda, 15. (2015). ENVE: a novel computational framework characterizes copy-number mutational landscapes in colorectal cancers from African American patients. Genome Medicine, 7(1), 1-15. doi:10.1186/s13073-015-0192-9