Project summary
Low adherence to cervical and breast cancer screening recommendations contributes to high cervical and breast cancer mortality among Hispanic women. From 1997-2013, NCFH conducted the instrumental “Cultivando La Salud” program to bridge the gap between Hispanic farmworker women and their cervical and breast cancer screenings. It was the first program of its kind to utilize promotoras which paved the way for farmworkers to receive health education in years to come. Cultivando La Salud was such a successful program that it was included as a case study in the textbook, Planning Health Promotion Programs: An Intervention Mapping Approach.
In the study, 713 low-income Hispanic farmworker women over age 50 participated in a research program to determine the effectiveness of having community health workers (promotoras) educate this targeted community on the importance of breast cancer and cervical cancer screenings.
Clinic staff trained promotoras, or community healthcare workers, to be able to educate the women in the study on the importance of these medical screenings. The promotoras met with each woman individually to inform them and motivate in culturally relevant ways to participate in the screenings. The study involved follow up appointments at 2 months and 6 months to determine if the women had received the screenings and their perceptions of them.
Cultivando La Salud was led by NCFH’s Alicia Gonzalez in partnership with Dr. Maria Fernandez and Dr. Tortolero Luna as well as Sylvia Partida and L. Kay Bartholomew. The program was later reproduced in Puerto Rico by Dr. Luna at the Puerto Rico Cancer Center.
Citation:
Fernández ME, Gonzales A, Tortolero-Luna G, Partida S, Bartholomew LK. Cultivando la Salud: A breast and cervical cancer screening program for Hispanic farmworker women. In LK Bartholomew, GS Parcel, G Kok, NH Gottlieb, Planning Health Promotion Programs: An Intervention Mapping Approach. (2nd ed.) Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, CA, 2006.