Susanna Fletcher Greer, Chief Scientific Officer of the V Foundation, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Sharing my latest LinkedIn newsletter today, inspired by Giving Tuesday and next week’s V Foundation for Cancer Research event for the Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research Fund.
It features a powerful new V Foundation funded study on how Black cancer survivors, caregivers, and community members co created a clinical trials awareness campaign that feels trustworthy and useful in their communities.
If you care about equity in clinical trials, or you have ever wondered why Black patients remain so underrepresented in cancer research, I hope you will give it a read and share it with someone in your network who needs this perspective.”
Check out the newsletter.
She also added:
“This week the V Foundation community will gather at Boo Yah to honor Stuart Scott and his call to confront cancer inequities head on.
As we get ready for an event that fuels the Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research Fund, I keep coming back to one question: How do we talk about cancer research and clinical trials in ways that truly earn trust in Black communities?
In this edition, I highlight a new V Foundation funded paper with a powerful title. ‘The more I know, the more you know.’ Using culturally responsive marketing strategies to develop tools that increase awareness about clinical trials among Black communities.
The authors start from a stark reality: Black Americans bear the highest death rates from most cancers in the United States, yet in recent cancer clinical trials that led to new therapies, only a very small fraction of participants were Black.
That gap is not only unjust. It limits what science can deliver for the people who need it most.
Rather than assuming that traditional academic outreach will fix this, the team partnered with Black cancer survivors, caregivers, and community members across the country. They borrowed tools from the marketing world, listened carefully to lived experiences of racism and mistrust, and co-created a short film series called FOR US. The videos feature Black actors, a Black health care professional, and a realistic family conversation about whether to join a clinical trial.
What emerged is a low tech, high trust communication tool that explains what clinical trials are, acknowledges history directly, and offers credible next steps so people can make informed choices for themselves and their families.
In the rest of this newsletter, I unpack what they did, what they learned from Black communities, and how this work connects to the vision behind the Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research Fund and Boo Yah.”
More posts from Susanna Fletcher Greer.