Vietnamese women and cervical cancer: Overcoming obstacles to awareness
Three-year education and screening program intended to reduce the risk of cervical cancer
The Situation
Vietnamese women face five times the risk of developing cervical cancer compared to Caucasian women, yet have extremely low Pap smear screening rates. For many reasons, they are often unaware or unwilling to take advantage of the benefits of early screening, preventive measures, and treatment.
The Program
The Cervical Cancer program is an outreach effort developed by Boat People SOS (BPSOS) – a national organization working to meet the needs of Vietnamese in the United States – to increase awareness, support, and diagnostic testing among 10,000 Vietnamese women 21 years and older in the greater Washington, D.C. area. Relying on a $585,000 grant from CareFirst, the project has three primary components:
- Awareness. A communications campaign will be designed to reach the Vietnamese community through radio talk shows, articles, and on Vietnamese American television. Community groups, health advocates, health fairs and other avenues will also be used to deliver information.
- Referral and Support. BPSOS, project partners and volunteers will seek to refer interested women to a network of local service providers, depending on each woman's individual situation. The program will also work on expanding the network of participating providers.
- Building community involvement. By training and empowering community members and specifically forming a community-based cervical cancer coalition, a strong and growing foundation for cervical cancer awareness can be established.
BPSOS' cervical cancer outreach effort will focus on Northern Virginia the first year and then expand to Washington, D.C. the second year and suburban Maryland in the third year.
