NBA superstar Grant Hill, also an Atlanta Hawks co-owner, and African American health advocate, has teamed up with Dendreon to combat the prostate cancer racial disparities experienced by African American men. He discusses, along with Cancer ABCs CEO Joel Nowak, how men, particularly African American men, can combat the disparities.
They focus on how a man can develop their own playbook to beat prostate cancer, what role a man should play with his doctor and the importance of becoming an educated patient.
Mr. Hill shared a program he has started with Dendreon called Start Strong. Start Strong (www.startstrong.us) is focused on raising awareness of the racial disparities in prostate cancer incidence and the importance of talking to your doctor about the best treatment options.
Please note that during the interview, Mr. Hill provided the wrong web address for the Start Strong Program. The correct address is www.startstrong.us.
NBA superstar Grant Hill, also an Atlanta Hawks co-owner, and African American health advocate, has teamed up with Dendreon to combat the prostate cancer racial disparities experienced by African American men. He discusses, along with Cancer ABCs CEO Joel Nowak, how men, particularly African American men, can combat the disparities.
They focus on how a man can develop their own playbook to beat prostate cancer, what role a man should play with his doctor and the importance of becoming an educated patient.
Mr. Hill shared a program he has started with Dendreon called Start Strong. Start Strong (www.startstrong.us) is focused on raising awareness of the racial disparities in prostate cancer incidence and the importance of talking to your doctor about the best treatment options.
Please note that during the interview, Mr. Hill provided the wrong web address for the Start Strong Program. The correct address is www.startstrong.us.
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Joel Nowak: Today's podcast promises to be very special. As my guest I have the great. Mr. Grant Hill with me. Mr. Hill is a former college and professional basketball player and currently he is the co-owner and vice-chair of the Board of the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association. After playing ball for Duke, Mr. Hills' professional basketball career extended over 18 Seasons with four teams until he was plagued with multiple serious injuries that forced him to retire as a player in 2013.
According to Wikipedia, he is considered one of the greatest basketball players ever. Mr. Hill also has worked as a basketball analyst for both CBS and Turner Sports.
Besides all of these amazing accomplishments, I understand. Mr. Hill, that you continue your activities of giving back to the community. You have become a prostate cancer advocate.
I was wondering, Mr. Hill, how and why did you make the decision to invest your time in advocacy? And why in prostate cancer?
Grant Hill: Well, first of all, thank you Joel for the very kind introduction and for allowing me to come here and talk today with you about prostate cancer. For me, it really kind of started, you mentioned my role and ownership with the Atlanta Hawks being in Atlanta, which as a large African American population.
As team, we first started really trying to raise some awareness to support prostate cancer and then from that the opportunity to partner with Dendreon was really exciting. I don't have a personal account as it relates to prostate cancer, don't have anyone at least in my immediate family, although I think we're all impacted, particularly black men, I think we talked about my career and my injuries and someone who was an athlete and who had a number of setbacks and ailments nothing serious or life-threatening.
I realize it's about taking ownership of your health and that allowed me to navigate so many challenges and get back and play till I was 40.
As you look at prostate cancer and it's a risk for all men but it disproportionately impacts our community and African-American men.
African-American men are twice as likely to be diagnosed with and two and a half times more likely to die from prostate cancer than Caucasian men. And so, when I heard about that, and obviously I knew about prostate cancer, but now started learning about some of the information about this disparity. I just knew, okay, I can't stay on the sidelines. I have to get in the game and I'm at that age.
You know, I'm at that age where I'll be 50 later this year. Obviously, I was younger a few years ago, but this starts to impact people that are my age, it starts to accelerate a little bit more as we get older as black men and it's something that can be avoided. You know, that's the thing that to use my name to use my platform to partner with Dendreon Pharmaceuticals to really raise the awareness, but also educate and inform.
And get others to get into the game and advocate for advocate for themselves. And that's what we've done and we've enjoyed it, we've had success and we're going to keep kicking and yelling and screaming and getting people to get on board and understand that this can be avoided with the proper screening and education. That's something that historically ha plagued black men in our community. We don't like to visit doctors. And so, we want to change that narrative and we're working hard to do that.
Joel: I think you're 100% correct. I'm curious, in the work that you have done have you seen particular issues or reasons that black men don't want to go to the doctor or black men don't get screened?
Grant: I think, first and foremost as a community particularly with black men, I'm not sure if we've been conditioned to be this way or it's just sort of something a lack of trust, but we don't tend to go to doctors unless there's something wrong. We have to change that, particularly as we get older. There's a lot of reasons behind that and this scenario when there's something wrong, obviously, it can be life-threatening.
To go and have your annual checkup, which all people as we age and even people who are young should do as well. This with the right kind of screening and I think also with the new kinds of screening. Not your old sort of traditional screening, if you will, which I think maybe put fear in a lot of people. But now things have evolved on the screening front and so we have to change that because these number,s I mean when I said how it disproportionately impacts in the racial disparities with prostate cancer.
This when detected early can be treated. I've even encouraged women, you know, women to get in the ears of black men, encourage them as well. Sometimes, as black men we need to be pushed. We need to be encouraged. We need to have someone explain to us the importance of it. So, yeah, I mean, it's like I said, we got to change that narrative. Not just as it relates to prostate cancer, and those numbers, and bringing those numbers down.
But just in general, taking care of ourselves, having longevity taking ownership much, like, as an athlete takes ownership of their livelihood and their health. We need black men to do the same.
Joel: You said, African American or black men tend not to go to the doctor, especially if they're feeling well. I think I need to point out that with prostate cancer you often don't have any symptoms and at the time that you start having symptoms is the time that it has usually spread outside of the prostate gland.
You're now talking about a very serious disease, that may not be curable, or most likely is not curable. Where if you catch prostate cancer while it's still confined within the prostate gland, it can be cured without symptoms. If you're not getting screened, you put yourself at great risk. As you've mentioned, black men are at a much higher risk.
You obviously out there, you're talking to Men. You're sharing this really important information. I was just curious if you have any thoughts or plans on how we can better reach the black community. I don't know if you're doing anything with the Blackhawks that maybe teaching or helping black men understand that there's a problem and that they need to do something even though they may not have any symptoms.
Grant: Yeah. No, I mean, it's really incredible. I think I'm someone who for the most part has been relatively informed on matters that relate to the African American community and in particular as it relates to health disparities. But I'm embarrassed to say that as of three or four years ago, I was not fully aware of those disparities. I was not fully aware of one in seven African American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime.
I wasn't aware that there's evidence that suggests aggressive prostate cancers are more common in African American men. I wasn't aware that African American men get prostate cancer at a younger age and tend to have that more advanced disease when it's found.
Once you hear about this, and once you are made aware, you have to take it serious and you have to maybe change your line of thinking. I think a lot of people just aren't aware. They hear about it. You may know somebody might have a family member who ends up having prostate cancer and may actually die as a result. It may be fatal, but I think the education, the information and the ability to be proactive as it relates to this.
I found that a number of people my age older and younger, know prostate cancer, obviously, but don't fully understand what we're dealing with here. To come on your platform to do media press junkets, to do everything that we're doing, to raise awareness and educate is a huge start. People have been receptive and people have appreciated learning about this.
We have a great campaign, the Start Strong campaign, which is obviously to raise awareness of these racial disparities within prostate cancer and also encouraging black men with prostate cancer to really develop themselves, a game plan, and working with their doctor. I went through ankle surgeries. I'm not trying to equate an ankle surgery to prostate cancer, but I know when you work in conjunction, you have a game plan, you ask the right questions when you visit a doctor. It gives you a playbook and you know what to follow.
It's one. it's doing what's necessary to prevent it. And then two, if it were to happen and you were to be diagnosed. then what? How do you approach this? How do you attack it? Are you shoulder to shoulder with your doctor? Are you fully aware of all the treatments that are available? What you should be doing? That's part of this start strong campaign that we've developed and we got a great website, www.startstrong.com. (Editorial Note – the actual address is www.startstrong.us)
Educating people, not assuming that people are aware of these disparities. Using your platform and many others to get the word out there. Talk about it and get people to get off the sidelines and get in the game.
Joel: You're speaking to the heart of what we try to do a Cancer ABCs. Our attitude is that men who were going to do best if they are diagnosed, are men who have taken control of their medical care along with their doctors as you put it shoulder-to-shoulder with their doctors. I think that's so important, but really be shoulder the shoulder and equal partner with their doctors if they're not educated. They don't know their disease. They don't know in this case, prostate cancer because as you said good questions are important and you can't have good questions for your doctor if you don't understand the disease.
I think that's really vital and I'm really excited to hear that this is something that you're working with on Start Strong. I'm wondering if you could share a little more about Start Strong. What the program is? How you develop it?
Grant: Just to answer your question, I want to reference the first part of that question. The people who are taking ownership of their health, they're the people who have the annual checkups, they're the people who are going to try to live right to do healthy things. But also, if and when things happen, if all of a sudden, you're diagnosed with anything, and in this case prostate cancer. The fact that you're already proactive, there's probably a good chance that you're going to develop a game plan.
You can be proactive, you can take ownership and things happen. People get diagnosed, and that happens and that's part of being a human, part of life. But you give yourself a chance, you give yourself a realistic chance to beat whatever that might be when you're proactive when you advocate for yourself.
This start strong message is really for those people who aren't in that bucket. It's people who historically have been very nonchalant and carefree when it comes to their health. One of the things that I learned with this campaign, doing this type of work, and being an ambassador of sorts to prostate cancer. It's the people who are impacted by these types of diagnoses.
When all of a sudden at a young age, you're diagnosed with this and unfortunately, it becomes fatal. Family members, spouses, loved ones, children, everyone is impacted by that. The most important thing that you can do, it's selfish but it's also selfless, is to take care of your health and your wellness. And all we're trying to do with this is encourage people to do that especially as it's related to prostate cancer. Make those regular doctor's appointments, ask questions when you're confused. Get a second opinion if needed.
A lot of times we go to a doctor and we don't fully understand. We don't want to necessarily look foolish or uninformed or uneducated when we hear something that we don't understand. It's your right when you visit a doctor and you leave out that door to understand fully what's happening with you and your body and then what's the plan moving forward. You should understand all of that.
Part of the campaign is encouraging people. Encouraging patients to be proactive to get second opinions, to be selfish so you can be selfless and live for your family and those that are loved ones of yours. For those who are diagnosed, understanding and asking doctors about immunotherapies, some of the new treatments that are available that can help you fight this, that's part of being informed.
Having a game plan, knowing how to attack this and like I said, giving yourself a realistic chance to beat it. We do that in sports, you know, you prepare. Yeah, you prepared your body, you collectively prepared as a team, you know the game plan, you know the opponent scouting report, and all that gives you the best opportunity to be successful.
Well, with the Start Strong campaign, we're trying to make sure everyone has the best opportunity to be successful.
Joel: You're talking about how important it is for men to go to their doctor annually and get their annual exam, but I think it's also important to be aware that there are doctors who don't normally and routinely screened for prostate cancer. It's really important that when a man does go into their doctor's office for their annual physical they raise that question and say, look, doctor. I think it's important that I get screened. I would like you to please arrange for a screening. Screening is easy. The initial screen is a simple blood test.
Most likely your doctor is going to do blood work on you anyway, and so just run that extra test is called a PSA, a prostate specific antigen test. There are other tests that also should be done, but the first step is that PSA test, but unfortunately, if you don't ask for it, there's a good chance you're not going to get it.
Its one thing to go to the doctor. It's another thing to make sure the doctor is doing everything that you want them to do. How do you get them to do it? You asked for it. You're not going to know the answers to these questions or know what to ask or demand. And I'm going to use that word "demand" because it's your life unless you educate yourself and you learn from Start Strong.
You mentioned earlier on that you've been working with a company called Dendreon. I do want to be transparent that Cancer ABC's has received support from Dendreon for some of our programs. Could you talk a little bit about Dendreon and the immunotherapy because they have the only FDA approved immunotherapy specific for prostate cancer. I don't know whether you're familiar with Provenge and the results. Many African American men actually experience as compared to Caucasian men.
Grant: I'm very much aware of Provenge and the incredible results that it's had for early stage and even advanced prostate cancer patients. Once again, people aren't informed unless someone tells them and makes them aware of it. I am not a doctor. I've had a number of surgeries in my lifetime, more on the foot and ankle than anything. I can't get into the sort of medical technical in terms of why, and how, and Provenge does, and how its able to have the incredible results that it does, but I know that the numbers speak for themselves.
And so yeah, I mean that's part of the Start Strong campaign. It's making people aware of these treatment options and the data and the numbers. Just even just giving people a playbook before they even go to a doctor and every possible scenario. Good bad or indifferent that can happen is all there. That's the beauty in the world that we live in now and the access to information in the digital age, you have this in front of you.
Just directing people to take advantage of this incredible resource is what we're doing. Like I said, the numbers are in the data and they speak for themselves.
Joel: Absolutely, but again, like I shared with screening that some doctors, unless you ask them to screen you for prostate cancer, they might not do that routinely. I would also say that if you are diagnosed with prostate cancer and you qualify, you also should raise the issue about having Provenge as one of your treatment options because not every doctor thinks of everything that's available. That patient who's going to thrive is going to be the patient,who's going to raise those questions, ask good questions, as you reference very in the very beginning of this interview.
Doctor is Provenge something that I qualify for is something that I can benefit from. What can we do to see that I get it at the proper time? I think that's really important and I'm going to stress that proper time and I'm not a doctor either, but as you said the numbers speak for themselves. The earlier a man gets Provenge, the better chances they have of it's going to have a positive effect or they're going to live longer. Also, I think the data, it was shocking, but it's true.
African American men get a better benefit from Provenge and so it's definitely should be a treatment that's considered. African American men, not only receive a better benefit from Provenge, there were also other prostate cancer treatments that they received a better or bigger benefit. This means you need to communicate with your doctor and you can't communicate with your doctor if you're not educated. I think your point is being educated is so vital and then being active, not being afraid or being shy. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how a man should interact.
Grant: Yes. I've had an interesting life because I played professional sports until I was 40, and so getting multiple physical throughout a year, you know, every year. In part, because a team has a lot of money tied up in invested in you, and there's insurance, and there's a number of things. You are going to see doctors frequently as a professional athlete?
And then you retire. Full disclosure, I probably went three or four years and didn't see a doctor. I think part of that was and I'm not proud of this at all, but I'm being totally transparent. As an athlete, everything is for the most part taken care of, you know, you don't have to go to the doctor's office. They come to you, they come to The Practice Facility, everything is easily accessible. Then all of a sudden you retire, making your own appointments. You're waiting in the waiting room and all these different things. I had to like, okay. Look, I'm getting up there. I have to be smart and lo and behold. I've gone four years and haven't been to a doctor at all.
This is your life. This is your health. All we're trying to do, I think are trying to do is to extend ones life.
I think it's important to understand fully what happened. When I say what happened, like what happened on that visit, I think you have to understand what to ask as you're talking about getting tested for prostate cancer.
I think doctors are human, doctors are trained. Not all doctors are great, doctors have differing opinions sometimes. There's a reason why we call it practicing medicine, but I also think whatever it is that you here should make sense. That's just from my own personal experience.
If you go to a doctor, ask questions, no question is a bad question. Every question is a good question and you should leave understanding fully what just transpired on that visit from the testing, the blood testing, to diagnosis, to whatever it is that you went through. That should be an important relationship. That should be a relationship you value, but you should also like I said, ask questions if things don't make sense, then ask, ask until you can get a better understanding of things.
I think if you can do that, then you really giving yourself the greatest opportunity, to extend your life and live great quality of life for as long as you can.
Joel: Absolutely. Talking about screening, I mentioned briefly the blood test, the PSA, but the other plenary screening is called the digital rectal exam, a DRE. We're basically a doctor puts their finger up a man's behind to feel the prostate gland because how that gland feels can often be an indication if there may be something brewing in the prostate gland.
I know for a lot of men, and I'm not going to mince words here. They feel it's gay. I don't really want to get into the whole issue and conversation about what that means, but they feel it's not manly and it's a stigma, but it's an important exam. Would you be willing to talk a little bit about that? I think we have to encourage men to be fully screened.
Grant: Yeah, we do. We do obviously a lot of times that particular exam is looked upon as its taboo, but it's not manly, it's whatever. People have fears or concerns about that, but at the end of the day, you are doing what's necessary, so you can live and you can live long. Of course, there are other screening options as well, but I think that's the one that's ingrained in our heads and that's what we would rather not face the embarrassment of or the stigma associated with that. That mindset that narrative has to change.
I think when you present the numbers and you present the disparities along racial lines, and the impact on the black community, African American men, we have to get over ourselves. Like I said, be proactive and give ourselves a chance. Give ourselves a chance to change those numbers and we can do that and we're committed to helping everyone change that narrative and reduce those numbers as it relates to prostate cancer.
Joel: Thank you so much for that. I think we have to say to men that it's a medical procedure. That's all it is.
Grant: I like that. I like that. Yeah.
Joel: There is a potentially embarrassing exam that men all go through to make sure we don't have a hernia where we stand there and drop our drawers, doctors stick their fingers somewhere nearer our scrotum, and has his cough. It's something we all do. It's no different or no worse than having a DRE than that it's just, it's a medical procedure. That's going to save our life. We just need to get over ourselves and save our lives because as you've pointed out, not only is, are we responsible for ourselves but we're responsible. Many of us are most of us responsible for so many other people, our children, our spouses.
As you said, we have to get over ourselves. I think it's so important and I appreciate your being candid about it. Thank you.
Grant: All right. Well, I appreciate you, Joel. This is a great interview. I have fun and thank you for using your platform to bring more awareness to prostate cancer.
Joel: I thank you. And just before we wrap up, I'm going to ask if there's anything that you want to share or say you can get up on a soapbox. I don't have a problem with that. It's your time now. Is there anything you want to add?
Grant: No, no, I'm good. This has been great. And I think we've touched on a number of things and I think I'm in good shape.
Joel: Okay. I am too, and I really want to thank you for your advocacy. Thank you so much. Specially, you're an advocate and you haven't been directly touched by prostate cancer, but you understand its implications for your community and for men in general. I thank you so much for those of us with prostate cancer for the work you're doing. With that, I'm going to close this podcast, and again if anybody has any questions or comments, you can email me at the email address in the comments below. Thank you again, Mr. Hill. Appreciate all that you're doing for men.
Grant: All right. Thank you.
Joel: Hi, this is Joel Nowak. I trust that you found this podcast with Grant Hill to be intriguing and interesting. I did want to clarify one thing, during the podcast, Mr. Hill made an error in giving us the address for the Start Strong program. The Start Strong program is at www.startstrong.us. Again, it's at www.startstrong.us. Why don't you go over there and check out the program?
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