Princeton Baptist Medical Center and Baptist Health Foundation to Support Cancer Outreach Initiative Aimed at Serving Latina Community

Sept. 5, 2019 - BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Princeton Baptist Medical Center and the Baptist Health Foundation are proud to once again support Sowing the Seeds of Health, a cancer outreach program devised by the University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Cancer Center, which has served more than 3,500 Latina women in six counties in Alabama and continues to demonstrate the need to navigate cultural differences in raising awareness about cancer detection.

This community-based, culturally relevant educational program for Latinas in Alabama was developed in 2003 and resulted in a successful evidence-based outreach initiative that has been maintained since that time with support from the Susan G. Komen North Central Alabama affiliate. Using the concept of “promotoras de salud,” or health promoters from the community, the program trains lay individuals from the Latino community with knowledge and skills necessary to promote health, prevent disease and encourage screening.

Annual educational luncheons are held in local churches where a Spanish-speaking health care professional educates participants about breast and cervical cancer, early detection, and screening. Women are also given the opportunity to schedule appointments for low-cost Pap tests, clinical breast exams and mammography screening at local hospitals and clinics via the Alabama Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. Navigators are then available to assist them with their appointment and follow-up needs.

Princeton Baptist Medical Center will provide mammograms over a four-day period between its main hospital campus and the Hoover campus.  In addition, the Baptist Health Foundation will provide interpreters for the screening events as well as for the materials published about this year’s screening and educational program.

According to Terri M. Lamons, BS, RT, executive director of Imaging/Neuroscience at Princeton Baptist Medical Center, “We are extremely proud to partner with UAB on this initiative. Princeton Baptist Medical Center actively seeks ways to extend our community built on care to meet the healthcare needs of our neighbors. This initiative presents an ideal opportunity to promote health education and encourage screening among the Latino community while encouraging this population to be proactive about their own health.”

Although Latina women do have lower rates of breast cancer and breast cancer mortality compared to their African-American and white counterparts, breast cancer is still the most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer death among Latina women. Furthermore, Latina women tend to be diagnosed with more advanced breast cancers than are white women.