The public health issue: Underserved communities experience disparities in education, screening and treatment for many diseases, including breast cancer. Culturally-relevant information on breast cancer must be equitably disseminated to women in order to begin to address these disparities.
In 2014 and again in 2015, Health Promotion Council, with funding from Susan G. Komen, worked with the Research & Evaluation Group to develop two toolkits on breast health education that community educators can use to provide information to 1) Hispanic and Latina women and 2) black and African American women.
Our contribution to the client: The Research & Evaluation Group served as both a technical assistance provider and an evaluator of these projects. First, our team conducted background research on breast cancer incidence and mortality among the targeted populations, as well as specific barriers to breast cancer screenings and treatment for these populations. These research findings were included in the final toolkits, and also helped the team assess the need for additional toolkit content (i.e. providing strategies to address existing barriers to care). Additionally, we worked with the team to develop evaluation tools that were included in the toolkits for use by community health educators to evaluate their own programs. The overall project evaluation included meeting and training observations, surveys of the toolkit review team members, and surveys of staff who implemented the toolkit at pilot sites in order to improve toolkit drafts.
View the toolkits here: http://komentoolkits.org/toolkits