Reach Out

Reach Out is a broad-based Chicago-area collaboration that draws on the leadership of local churches to encourage low-income African American and Hispanic women to seek early breast and cervical cancer screening. Reach Out held focus groups of female members of seven African American and two Latino churches and learned that participants wanted relevant information about how breast and cervical cancer could affect them as individuals and as a community. Led by health educators in the community, each church used a standard education intervention in addition to other outreach methods such as incorporating health information and reminders about the importance of screening and early detection in Sunday sermons, developing support groups, and sponsoring health fairs.

The goal of this program is to encourage low-income African American and Hispanic women to seek early breast and cervical cancer screening.

Timely mammography screening could prevent approximately 15%–30% of all deaths dfrom breast cancer among women over the age of 40. According to the American Cancer Society, between 1955 and 1992, the number of deaths from cervical cancer declined by 74%, and the main reason for that decline was the use of the Pap test to detect cervical cancer early. This program will increase screening participation among a key high-risk group.