Community Outreach and Prevention

In 2013, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a workshop summary, Leveraging Culture to Address Health Inequalities: Examples from Native Communities. I was struck by a number of things that are both timely and applicable to the unique challenges faced by the cancer community in America and to patient navigators in particular.

We all do a lot of community outreach in our own geographic area. Commonly, the focus is on cancers that are preventable or can be effectively treated through early detection. Breast, colorectal, melanoma, and lungs cancers are good examples. With the new human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine available to prevent cervical cancer among young women, we have an opportunity to push the envelope a bit and consider jump-starting education about overall cancer affecting young people.