CLEVELAND — For Waverly Willis, the barber chair is about more than just a haircut.
"By having these conversations, I'm prompting men to get a screen," he says.
He uses his relationships with clients to share an important message about health screenings, particularly for prostate cancer.
Willis partnered with the Cleveland African American Prostate Cancer Project (CAAPP) through Case Western Reserve University, hosting clinics at his shop Urban Kutz. His own cancer scare, with his kidney, part of his motivation.
"I was at the Minority Men's Health Fair and I got screened," he remembered. "It came and said, 'You have microscopic traces of blood in your urine, and we suggest you get a follow up test.'"
Doctors found a mass on his right kidney, and he had it removed. Years later, he's cancer free, encouraging others to get screened.
"We're dying, but we're dying unnecessarily, simply because we don't get screened," Willis said.
"Black men have a higher incidence, twice the incidence and twice the death rate for prostate cancer," Dr. Charles Modlin explains. "The higher death rate is attributable to the fact that, often times, prostate cancer is diagnosed in later stages due to delay in screening in Black men."
Modlin is the vice president and chief equity officer at MetroHealth, as well as a clinical urologist. He also founded the Minority Men's Health Fair.
According to him, environmental factors, lack of education, limited access to health care, and the disease being hereditary all partially play a role in how prostate cancer disproportionately affects black men. After U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin shared his prostate cancer diagnosis and subsequent hospitalization, advocates hope this will motivate others to take the screenings seriously.
"I applaud him for actually acknowledging this, because it's going to affect and improve and, I actually believe, this is going to save countless lives of men who are going to see that he was diagnosed and then they themselves will be alerted to the fact that they need to undergo the screening themselves," Modlin said.
The Minority Men's Health Fair will be held on April 27.