From high tech to high touch: integrating community voices in mobile mammography outreach.
Providing mobile screening mammography services across the state of West Virginia (WV) presents unique challenges. The ability of new machines to screen for breast cancer is modern medicine at its best. The use of the mobile unit, "Bonnie's Bus", holds promise for getting this high tech equipment to women in rural areas of West Virginia where it is most needed. Cancer detected in early stages is more treatable and women have a better chance of becoming survivors. The key to the program's success resides with the women who come for the screening, the extension network of community members who help set up and assist women to access the screening system, and community health care providers who care for the women if cancer is found. Linking "community voices" with the programs funded under the WV Komen grant screening programs provides a winning solution for West Virginia and the women served by Bonnie's Bus. Information obtained from five focus groups of 58 community leaders and women residing in rural WV was used to develop the mobile program. Building upon established relationships with the West Virginia Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program (WV BCCSP) coordinators and providers, outreach and information gleaned from WV communities, is being used to develop community partnerships based on mutual trust and respect to advance the common goal of decreasing breast cancer related illness and death in West Virginia women.
Kennedy
Stephenie
S
Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA.
Stephens
Sheila
S
Tephabock
Kevin
K
Brown
Pamela
P
Davis
Patty
P
Keresztury
James
J
Narsavage
Georgia
G
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D008327:Mammography; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods; D008875:Middle Aged; D008952:Mobile Health Units / Q000458:organization & administration*; D018986:Motor Vehicles; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014903:West Virginia