After a well-documented breast cancer journey that lasted nearly a decade, actress Shannen Doherty — best known for her role as Brenda Walsh on the Fox teen drama “Beverly Hills, 90210” — died from the cancer on July 13, at age 53. Her publicist shared the news.
Doherty, who revealed her diagnosis in 2015, had stage 4 breast cancer that spread to her lymph nodes, and she received chemotherapy and radiation treatments. She underwent a single mastectomy in May 2015, and in 2017 she said her cancer had gone into remission. The cancer came back in 2020, however, and it eventually spread to her bones and brain.
Doherty’s journey highlighted the importance of health insurance even for the Hollywood actress, who didn’t have insurance when first diagnosed. A lack of insurance can hinder cancer detection and treatment, and it’s a problem that is quite familiar to Colorado School of Public Health Dean and University of Colorado Cancer Center Deputy Director Cathy Bradley, PhD, a public health researcher who studies decisions made at the intersection of work, health insurance, and cancer.
We talked with Bradley about the connection between health insurance status and getting screened or treated for cancer.