House Speaker Ronald Mariano on Thursday pointed to a boost in last year’s budget for prostate cancer awareness as lawmakers pledged to continue their support for the fight against the disease and its inequities, and highlighted the positive effects that awareness campaigns can produce.

At a virtual Prostate Cancer Awareness Day event, Mariano touted a $200,000 increase in fiscal 2022 for a line item that covers the costs of “a prostate cancer awareness, education and research program focusing on men with African-American, Hispanic or Latino heritage, family history of the disease and other men at high risk.”

The program is managed by the Department of Public Health with much of the money pledged to the Prostate Cancer Action Council, led by the AdMeTech Foundation which organized Thursday’s event.

In his fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2023 budget proposals, Gov. Charlie Baker recommended zeroing out the line item. The House and Senate in the last budget cycle opted to instead raise it from $800,000 to $1 million.

Mariano said many of the same inequities seen during the COVID-19 pandemic are also found in the fight against prostate cancer. He referenced “troubling statistics” that while prostate cancer strikes one in nine men, Black and Latino men are two-and-a-half times more likely to die from the disease than white men.

“While we can all do our part by talking with our doctor about getting screened for prostate cancer, the House will continue to do its part by legislating with the racial and health disparities in mind,” the speaker said.

Senate President Karen Spilka said death rates from prostate cancer have been on the uptick and more than 34,000 men are projected to die of the disease in 2022. She said prostate cancer “lays bare the ethnic and racial disparities in our health care system, as the rate of prostate cancer is much higher among Black and Latino men.”

Rep. Gerry Cassidy of Brockton said that Plymouth County saw significant results after initiating an awareness campaign in 2015, with prostate cancer mortality disparities between Black and white men dropping over the ensuing six years.

“Before this program started, African American men in Plymouth County, including Brockton, had Massachusetts’ highest mortality, and it was even higher compared to state averages,” Cassidy said. “However, by 2021, per National Cancer Institute, prostate cancer mortality in African American men, Plymouth County, decreased by 55 percent. And it is now significantly lower than state average. Between 2015 and 2021, mortality in white men in Plymouth County also decreased by 23 percent, to a lesser extent than in Black men, and yet white men’s mortality is now also lower than state average.”

Now in its 13th year, the annual advocacy day was traditionally held before the pandemic at the Grand Staircase inside the State House. While the capitol has reopened to the public, building administrators are not yet allowing outside groups to book spaces for organized events.

Garth Greimann, secretary-treasurer of the Mass. Prostate Cancer Coalition, said he missed the “people-to-people connections” that are possible in person, but the “silver lining” of being on Zoom is that everyone can hear the speaking program “without being distracted by the constant background buzz of legislative activity.”