NEWS

UNC breast cancer screening program, coordinator recognized in competition

By AMY PHILBECK
UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center

CHAPEL HILL -- A breast cancer screening education program, along with one of its leaders, has been recognized for its significant steps toward narrowing the gap between the number of mammograms obtained by black women and white women in rural N.C. counties.

The N.C. Breast Cancer Screening Program, a program of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health and Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, has seen the difference in black and white women’s screening rates narrow from 26 percent to 16 percent in its decade of operation. Black women with the least education and income made the greatest gains in obtaining screening mammography.

The N.C. Society for Public Health Education awarded the screening program, led by Dr. Jo Anne Earp, with the Kathy Kerr Outstanding Health Education Project Award for 2002. Earp is professor and chair of the department of health behavior and health education.

"N.C. BCSP has empowered women in our community to take charge of their health by arming them with accurate, life-saving information," said Dr. Albert Thompson, director of the Bertie County Rural Health Association, in his nomination letter. Bertie County is one of the five North Carolina counties involved in the screening program.

The health education project award is typically presented annually to projects that have received widespread recognition among health-care professionals and in the community and that have made a significant impact on health education.

"When the program began, only 32 percent of the older African-American women in Bertie County had had a mammogram in the past two years," Thompson said. "A survey of our community in 2000 revealed that 75 percent of the women now report having had a mammogram in the past two years."

The N.C. Society for Public Health also recognized Denise Brewster, regional coordinator for the breast cancer screening program, for her part in the program’s success and for her past successes with other health education programs. She received the Outstanding Health Educator Award for 2002.

She trained many of the older black women in the five eastern N.C. counties – Bertie, Beaufort, Martin, Tyrrell and Washington – as lay health advisers. These women now work within their local communities to encourage others to have regular mammograms and pap smears. The lay health advisers coordinate and lead a variety of breast and cervical cancer education campaigns at local churches, businesses and community events.

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Lineberger Center contact: Dianne Shaw, (919) 966-5905