Titanium
The Chrysalis Initiative and Eversana Intouch
The line that slashes through the equal sign is the ugliest blemish on all healthcare, symbolizing the many racial and gender disparities that impact African American women.
This fierce, creative effort turns that line into a beautiful power source, raising awareness about how bias hurts Black breast cancer patients, who are 40% more likely to die from the disease than their white counterparts. And then it takes a brave step beyond awareness, holding medical providers responsible for providing equitable care.
It solves an entrenched problem: Trials need to include more people of color to make better medicine. But only 3% of breast-cancer trial participants are Black. The Chrysalis Initiative knew that to help Black women overcome their mistrust of the medical establishment, it needed to get them the equal care they deserve. Then, women could feel safe to enroll in groundbreaking and lifesaving clinical trials.
The campaign includes the world’s first digital platform designed specifically for Black women by Black women. They can identify what cancer support they should be getting, choose hospitals that successfully provide equitable care and rate their cancer treatment.
Working with Jamil Rivers, survivor and founder of The Chrysalis Initiative, the campaign centers on an animated equality symbol with a slash. Laid across women’s breasts, it’s erased, a pixel at a time, for each registration of the BC Navi (Breast Cancer Navigation) app on the Chrysalis website.
Our judges say it is the one entry they couldn’t stop thinking about. And they loved how it addressed physicians’ role in these disparities, as patients rate their healthcare interactions along their journey. The information is collected within the app, proving bias as it happens in real time so that it can be directly addressed.
And they loved its simple effectiveness, building trust between Black women and medical institutions. Erase the Line is driving a 50% increase in trial enrollment by Black women, with 93% of participants reporting improved care.
