Project Early Awareness increased students’ knowledge of breast cancer

AACR Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research

Early breast health education programs may reduce breast cancer mortality rates in areas where high rates of breast cancer exist.

One such program, Project Early Awareness of Howard University’s Cancer Center, has increased Washington D.C.’s 11th and 12th grade public high school students’ comfort and ability to perform a self breast exam by 39% and their ability to correctly answer breast cancer questions by 69%.

“The goal of the program is to increase students’ awareness of breast health and we want to make sure that they share this information with their mothers and grandmothers,” Kimberly Higginbotham, Project Early Awareness program instructor and breast cancer survivor, said during a press conference. “Although a very small percentage of women younger than the age of 40 years are diagnosed with breast cancer, I was diagnosed at the age of 23 years, so I am able to show students that breast cancer is not only an older person’s disease.”

Students are given a pretest prior to the program to test their knowledge of breast cancer. The program begins with a young breast cancer survivor’s story and is followed with information on breast health topics including risk factors, breast growth and development, breast exams and mammography. An appropriate video is shown on how to perform a breast self-exam and students are given breast models to practice self-exam techniques.

The program ends with a question and answer session and a discussion on breast cancer myths as well as a post-test on what they have learned. Students are then sent home with information packets to share with their female family members.

“Post-tests have shown that there is a significant increase in students’ knowledge of risk factors for breast cancer and self breast exams,” Higginbotham said.

Since 2001, 2,880 students and their female family members have received information on breast health through Project Early Awareness. – by Jennifer Southall

For more information:

Higginbotham K. #B31. Presented at: AACR Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; Nov. 16-18, 2008; Washington.