Four community programs making a difference when it comes to breast cancer

Every day, the Prevent Cancer Foundation’s partners in prevention are hard at work to help carry out our mission of empowering people to stay ahead of cancer through prevention and early detection. Community grantees—whose work is made possible thanks to your support—are committed to serving people who face significant barriers to accessing lifesaving cancer screenings, education and patient navigation services. From coast to coast, their projects are making prevention knowledge and early detection services more accessible for more people, specifically those in medically underserved communities.

In recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we’re highlighting the work of some of these grantees who play a role in increasing access to breast cancer education, outreach and screening in their communities. Breast cancer impacts people across every culture, racial group, gender identity and economic status, but increasing access to education and screening services can detect more cancers early and for patients, this can mean less extensive treatment, more treatment options and better chances of survival.

Whether it’s through peer education, mobile mammography vans or community outreach, learn how you are playing a role in helping our grantees meet the needs of their community members and bring services to those who need it most:

Mobile mammography

Mobile mammography alleviates barriers to accessing quality breast cancer screening services in medically underserved areas by bringing screenings to the people. From the Big Apple to upstate, multiple community grantees are using wheels to bring more screening to more people.

Project Renewal, Inc., located in New York City, New York, provides compassionate, culturally competent mammography and follow-up support to women and gender non-conforming adults across New York City and Suffolk County. Through partnerships with other community-based organizations, they support their clients from the first visit through follow-up care.

The Research Foundation for the State University of New York, on behalf of the University at Buffalo’s “Patient Voices Breast Cancer Program,” supports predominantly low-income Black, Hispanic, refugee and immigrant women living in rural areas. Through mobile mammography and peer education ambassadors, their goal is to reach women at high risk for breast cancer who are not currently engaged with the health care system and link them to primary care and screening services.

Peer education

Despite being diagnosed at the youngest age on average, Hispanic patients are the least likely to have had a recent breast cancer screening prior to their breast cancer diagnosis. The Regents of the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque’s “Comadre a Comadre” program addresses this disparity by training Hispanic breast cancer survivors to serve as peer educators to connect other Hispanic women to education and screening services. What makes this program impactful is that the peer educators look like those they serve, creating a sense of trust and belonging among participants as they mirror languages, backgrounds and a general understanding of the populations they are serving.

Community outreach and patient navigation

Equal Hope/DBA Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force, located in Chicago, Illinois, addresses racial disparities in breast cancer screening and survival rates among Black and Hispanic women through community outreach, education and patient navigation. Patient navigation helps people receive health care and other resources to achieve better outcomes for their health.

Patient navigators work with people, their families and their caregivers to overcome barriers to cancer screening and diagnosis, care, and support needed after cancer treatment. Through its patient navigation program, Equal Hope/DBA Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force ensures women who face financial, emotional and transportation barriers will have the support they need to navigate breast cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment.

The impact of breast cancer is widespread, but access to prevention and early detection services brings us one step closer to a world where cancer is preventable, detectable and beatable for all. Because of you, we are able to continue supporting these community grantees and their work to provide nearly 3,000 screenings and educate more than 70,000 people over the next year.

Visit our website to learn about all the organizations and projects across the U.S. doing extraordinary work to get at-risk communities the education, screenings and vaccinations they need to prevent cancer or detect it early.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Learn more about your breast cancer risk and put your health first by taking our screening quiz.