Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education
-
The well-documented racial disparities in breast cancer mortality have prompted an aggressive response from the public health community, including the development and implementation of breast health education and breast cancer navigation programs. Many programs are successfully reaching women and providing education and motivation to get screened, and separately, many programs are successfully navigating women who have received abnormal results from a screening mammogram and need follow-up. However, a crucial gap in services remains, where women in the community are not receiving systematic navigation to their initial screening mammogram. This paper describes a community-based, community health worker-led breast health education and screening navigation program, details the metrics used to measure navigation outcomes, and discusses unique features of this project which could be adapted within other settings to initiate similar programming.
-
Many patients diagnosed with cancer search for health information on the Web. We aimed to assess the quality and reliability of online health information on prostate cancer. Google, Yahoo, and Bing were searched for the term "prostate cancer." After selecting the most frequented websites, quality was measured by DISCERN score, JAMA benchmark criteria, and presence of HONcode certification. ⋯ Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level was 7.9 ± 2.2, and Automated Readability Index was 7.5 ± 2.4, rating the websites as fairly difficult to read. In conclusion, quality, accessibility, and usability of websites on prostate cancer provided a high rating in the current analysis. These findings are encouraging in view of the growing frequency of patients' access of health information online.
-
The tradition of storytelling is an integral part of Alaska Native cultures that continues to be a way of passing on knowledge. Using a story-based approach to share cancer education is grounded in Alaska Native traditions and people's experiences and has the potential to positively impact cancer knowledge, understandings, and wellness choices. Community health workers (CHWs) in Alaska created a personal digital story as part of a 5-day, in-person cancer education course. ⋯ After viewing CHWs' digital stories created during CHW cancer education courses, focus group participants commented verbally and in writing about cultural relevance, engaging elements, information learned, and intent to change health behavior. Digital stories were described by Alaska focus group participants as being culturally respectful, informational, inspiring, and motivational. Viewers shared that they liked digital stories because they were short (only 2-3 min); nondirective and not preachy; emotional, told as a personal story and not just facts and figures; and relevant, using photos that showed Alaskan places and people.
-
For students of the health care professions to succeed in today's health care environment, they must be prepared to collaborate with other professionals and practice on interdisciplinary teams. As most will care for patients with cancer, they must also understand the principles of palliative care and its integration into oncology. ⋯ Qualitative feedback revealed that students appreciated the experiential aspects of the curriculum most, especially the opportunity to observe palliative teams at work and practice team-based skills with other learners. While there exist many obstacles to interprofessional education and hands-on learning, the value of such experiences to the learners justifies efforts to initiate and continue similar programs in the health sciences.
-
Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer of the reproductive system in men. Mass media campaigns have long been a tool for raising awareness of important health issues and changing health behavior. The Movember campaign was launched in Canada in 2007 with the goal of creating conversations about men's health in order to raise awareness and understanding about prostate cancer. ⋯ Few tweets (0.6 % of all tweets) referenced prostate or testicular cancers. Community engagement activities as well as moustache and grooming references were the most frequent topics in the health-related (10.49 and 1.97 %) and non-health-related (32.83 and 32.76 %) categories, which were significantly different by topic (p < 0.05). Findings from Twitter suggest that the Movember Canada 2013 did not meet the stated campaign objective of creating conversations about men's health and, specifically, about prostate and testicular cancers.