Large disparities in cancer death rates have led the Presidents Cancer Panel to sponsor a series of regional meetings around the country to look at the challenges of providing quality cancer care to all Americans and whether community-based or national programs can alleviate problems of access to appropriate care. The panel is chaired by Harold P. Freeman, M.D., chief executive officer and president of the North General Hospital in New York City.
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At meetings taking place around the country in the next 9 months, the panel is asking patients, physicians, and other health care providers in all 50 states to identify the populations underserved for cancer care in their state and bring attention to successful programs at the community or state level that help people receive appropriate care.
"Poverty places people in social circumstances leading to less information, poor living conditions, risk-promoting lifestyles, and lack of access to preventive care services," Freeman said at a recent meeting in Omaha. "The way people live, combined with a lack of resources and knowledge, culture, attitudes, lifestyles and behavior, have an influence on what diseases occur, as well as on the way they respond when they have a disease." Access to timely cancer health care can be difficult or lacking not only for the indigent, but also for people who are sole providers for their families, those living in rural areas, the elderly, and immigrant populations.
Results of the regional meetings will be consolidated into a report to the president containing specific recommendations for policies and national and local activities that can facilitate access to care.
The first of the series of seven regional meetings was held in June to hear testimony from Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Missouri. The 2-day meeting formats allow for 50 minutes of testimony per state. Typically, a state health care official provides demographic information, followed by presentations by patients, physicians, social workers, and health care volunteers.
The next meeting will be Sept. 1415 in Burlington, Vt., to hear testimony from Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and New York. A town hall session Thursday, Sept. 14, will be moderated by a popular host of a local public radio talk show and will invite comments from the general public. The panel has set up a Web site at http://www.PCPmeetings.org to provide information on upcoming meetings and to allow members of the public who cannot attend the meetings to write to the panel.
Future meetings are scheduled for Oct. 12-13 in Billings, Mont.; Nov. 16-17 in Nashville, Tenn.; January 2001 in California; March 2001 in New Mexico; and May 2001 in Washington, D.C.
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