Achieving equity in lung cancer screening for Black individuals requires innovation to move beyond ‘equal’ guidelines

Researchers from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the United States National Cancer Institute, and the Brown University School of Public Health (USA) have written a new commentary about improving equity in lung cancer screening eligibility for Black individuals in the USA. The commentary was published in the journal JAMA Oncology.

The United States Preventive Services Task Force recently expanded eligibility for lung cancer screening and considered that these new recommendations could reduce inequities among ethnic groups in the USA. However, analyses showed that at least some disparities between Black and White individuals remain unchanged.

Previous proposals to make criteria for lung cancer screening eligibility more equitable have major limitations. In this new commentary, which highlights important avenues for future research, the researchers remark that identifying a solution will require an understanding of the underlying causes of disparities, defining which disparities to eliminate, and developing new tools accordingly.

Robbins HA, Landy R, Ahluwalia JS
Achieving equity in lung cancer screening for Black individuals requires innovation to move beyond ‘equal’ guidelines
JAMA Oncol, Published online 24 February 2022;
https://doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2021.7252

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