Centre for Ethnic Health Research

#PlayDominoTalkProstate

The death rate is twice as high. Furthermore, African and African Caribbean men are more likely to develop prostate cancer at a younger age. It is essential that African and African Caribbean, in particular, know about their increased risk of prostate cancer.

“In the black community, men don’t want to talk about prostate cancer because they think it takes away from their manhood. To me, it’s best to know what the heck is going on in your body and take some measure to try to correct it” (Mr. M. Greene, 2018)

“#PlayDominoTalkProstate” Spot the Signs was launched on the 10th March 2018 in Leicester and was a very effective collaboration between The Centre for Ethnic Health Research, Prostate Cancer UK and ProstAID.

It gave individuals the opportunity to play Dominoes with friends and families in a very informal setting whilst receiving verbal messages from our speakers on the day. Specially designed leaflets, key rings and bottle openers which highlighted the statistics specifically to African Caribbean men were handed out to every attendee. A number of questions were raised which generated discussions generated by the members of the community.

As a result of the “#PlayDominoTalkProstate” campaign, weekly group sessions have been established 20 – 30 men attending weekly.

“Before we formed the African/African Caribbean Play Domino Talk prostate cancer, campaign Local African/African Caribbean men who themselves have a double risk to the rest of men of 1 in 4 of getting prostate cancer in their lifetimes, were not at all aware of the tremendous risk of prostate cancer to their health or indeed their lives!” Rob Banner, ProstAID.

The Centre has developed a toolkit to assist community champions and organisations help raise awareness of prostate cancer among African and African-Caribbean men, which is available to download now.

Raising awareness of prostate cancer amongst African and African-Caribbean men

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in the UK. Although it affects all men, black men are 2-3 times more likely to develop this cancer than their white counterparts. This toolkit has been developed to assist community champions and organisations help raise awareness of prostate cancer among African and African-Caribbean men. This is how the Leicester team did it.

Download Toolkit