The death of actor Chadwick Boseman from colon cancer at the age of 43 is emblematic of the racial disparities in access to screening and treatment for this disease, Ajay Prakash, MD, a hematology and oncology fellow at NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, writes in an op-ed for the New York Daily News.

While the reasons why Black Americans with colon cancer have a higher death rate than white Americans are not well understood, Dr. Prakash outlines a number of steps that can help prevent the early deaths of additional Black men from this disease.

“Particularly during this period in our nation’s history of social unrest and clearly identified inequities in care delivery, Chadwick Boseman’s death should be a wake-up call for all of us,” Dr. Prakash writes. “Let us not lose more of his generation because of inaction.”

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