Dialogue on cancer risk to air April 20A one-hour dialogue on cancer risk in the Savannah River Region of South Carolina and Georgia will air statewide on South Carolina Educational Television, at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 20.Entitled Living With Risk, the program examines the findings of a regional cancer registry, delivered by the Savannah River Region Health Information System (SRRHIS) in 1999. Daniel Lackland, Ph.D., associate professor of epidemiology and director of SRRHIS, is one of eight panelists appearing on the program. “A registry such as this can’t tell you what causes cancer, but it can tell you whether cancer is occurring at higher than expected rates,” Lackland said. The SRRHIS registry examines cancer incidence in 22 counties of South Carolina and Georgia. In South Carolina, these include Edgefield, Aiken, Barnwell, Orangeburg, Bamberg, Allendale, Colleton, Hampton, Beaufort and Jasper counties. Approximately 1.16 million people live in the region. The SRRHIS Cancer Incidence Report indicates overall cancer rates in the region are at or slightly below expected levels. However, cervical cancer in African American women and esophageal cancer in African American men both occur at higher than expected rates in the Savannah River Region. Also, African Americans are more likely to be diagnosed with cancers at later, less treatable, stages than are whites. “Access to regular medical checkups and screening is critical to early detection of cancer,” Lackland said. Healthcare access and affordability, community-level education and communication, and trust between physicians and patients are three primary issues discussed in the upcoming Living With Risk program. In addition to Lackland, panelists include Carolyn Davis, Mayor of Denmark, SC; former U.S. Congressman Butler Derrick; A. Stanley Meiburg, Ph.D., EPA deputy regional administrator; Daniel Nixon, M.D., president of the American Health Foundation; Stanley Rothman, Ph.D., co-author of the book Environmental Cancer: A Political Disease?; Joseph Silver, Ph.D., vice president of Academic Affairs at Savannah State University; and Monnieque Singleton, M.D., of Bamberg, S.C. The program’s moderator is Lynn Sherr of the ABC News program 20/20. The current program is the second in a planned series of Living With Risk programs, produced by the Medical University’s Environmental Biosciences Program and South Carolina Educational Television. The Healthy South Carolina Initiative provided primary funding support for the program, which will be distributed nationwide later this year. For more information on these programs, call Richard Jablonski at 727-6450, ext. 6462, or e-mail him at jablonsr@musc.edu. |