Harold P. Freeman, MD
ASCO joins the oncology community in mourning the death of Harold P. Freeman, MD, a world-renowned expert on and advocate for health equity and the pioneer of patient navigation services in oncology. Dr. Freeman passed away on August 11, 2026; he was 93.
After completing medical training at Howard University Medical School, Howard University Hospital, and Memorial Sloan Kettering, Dr. Freeman began his career as a surgical oncologist at Harlem Hospital Center in 1967, where he worked until 2000. His professional journey continued at Columbia University and North General Hospital.
Dr. Freeman used his voice, his lived experience, his expertise, and his influence in every setting—his clinical practice, his volunteer service, his publications, in the halls of Congress, and to sitting U.S. presidents—to advocate for patients who faced worse cancer outcomes due to race- and poverty-based health disparities.
He is considered “the father of patient navigation” (also known as nurse navigation), initially identifying social determinants of health and other factors that were barriers to breast cancer screening, follow-up, and initiation of treatment, based on conversations he had with his own patients at a free clinic he established at Harlem Hospital Center. The program he developed in 1990 trained nurses to help “navigate” patients through a complex medical system and around these obstacles in an effort to reduce cancer mortality. The impact of patient navigation was profound: 5-year survival rates increased from 39% to 70% after initiation of the program. Patient navigation has since evolved into its own discipline of comprehensive care coordination centered on the whole patient, as well as their community and environment.
Dr. Freeman held numerous volunteer and leadership roles in which he worked to advance health equity, including service on ASCO’s Health Disparities Task Force. He served as Chair of the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) Cancer in Minorities Committee and later as ACS president, as Chair of the President’s Cancer Panel (to which he was appointed by two U.S. presidents), as Associate Director of the National Cancer Institute, and as founding director of the Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities. He and his friend and collaborator, American fashion designer, and businessman Ralph Lauren cofounded the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention in Harlem in 2003, where Dr. Freeman served as Chair.
In 2003, ASCO presented Dr. Freeman with the Special Recognition Award in honor of his tireless advocacy for health equity and his efforts to improve cancer outcomes for patients affected by health disparities.
ASCO offers its sincerest condolences to Dr. Freeman’s family and friends, colleagues and collaborators, and the countless patients whose lives have been improved by his work.
Read more about Dr. Freeman in a profile published previously in The ASCO Post, available here.
