Since COVID-19 made its way to the United States, we have seen a stream of worrying news of the pandemic’s impact on cancer care in the U.S., including 9.4 million missed screenings for just about all forms of cancer. While screening rates rebounded in the fall of 2020, there’s a growing concern from oncologists that screenings haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels for everyone.
And the data are compelling. From September to December 2020, for example, fewer Black and Hispanic women had mammograms than in the three months prior to the pandemic. In addition, Black men were 25% less likely than their white counterparts to get a prostatectomy during the pandemic.
There is significant concern among health equity advocates that the pandemic’s ripple effects on cancer care could be sustaining or even deepening widely recognized and reported health disparities for vulnerable communities, including Black, Latinx, and rural Americans. Warnings from experts of the pandemic’s impact on cancer disparities necessitate an even greater urgency to further reduce gaps in care.
