{"id":5331,"date":"2009-10-29T21:48:51","date_gmt":"2009-10-30T04:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/?p=5331"},"modified":"2009-10-29T21:48:51","modified_gmt":"2009-10-30T04:48:51","slug":"october-awareness-breast-cancer-and-hispanic-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/2009\/10\/29\/october-awareness-breast-cancer-and-hispanic-heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"October Awareness: Breast Cancer and Hispanic Heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tina<\/a> asked for bloggers to participate as guest bloggers for October, on the theme of Breast Cancer Awareness, in honor of her Mother, a breast cancer survivor.\u00c2\u00a0 Here is my cross-listed post.<\/p>\n

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 It is also Hispanic Heritage Month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among Hispanic women<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Hispanic population is the largest minority group in the United States.\u00c2\u00a0 Hispanic Americans make up roughly 14 percent of the U.S. population, but they are the fastest growing segment, estimated to reach 20 percent or more by 2050.<\/p>\n

Even when access to health care is adequate<\/a>, for Hispanic women in the United States, breast cancer is more often diagnosed at a later stage, when the disease is more advanced.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Further, approximately two-thirds of breast cancer found in Hispanic women is discovered by accident \u00e2\u20ac\u201c not by screening or mammogram<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Actually, according to a Kaiser Permanente study, the news gets worse<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 When compared to non-Hispanic white women, Hispanic women are more likely to be diagnosed at a younger age, have cancer that has already spread beyond the breast, have tumors with cell type that have a poorer prognosis, have larger tumors, and have tumors that cannot be treated with some of the most effective medicines.<\/p>\n

What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the public health response?\u00c2\u00a0 Interventions aimed at increased screening, access, and education.\u00c2\u00a0 But is it enough?<\/p>\n

If early detection and survival is the goal of Breast Cancer Awareness Month \u00e2\u20ac\u201c then there has to be a conversation about an individual\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ability to access health care information and services.\u00c2\u00a0 Central to that conversation is the reality that those very life-saving information and services are unjustly linked to one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s racial, ethnic, socio-economic, and immigration status.<\/p>\n

How do these dynamics play out?\u00c2\u00a0 Here is a local example.\u00c2\u00a0 If a woman cannot demonstrate access to or eligibility for some type of insurance (or have the ability to pay) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c programs can deny her a screening for breast cancer.\u00c2\u00a0 Why?\u00c2\u00a0 The argument is that it is unethical to provide a screening for a disease when the patient will not be able to access treatment for it.\u00c2\u00a0 In the past year, one of the screening programs in New Orleans was shut down for this reason.<\/p>\n

What is more unethical?\u00c2\u00a0 Denying screening?\u00c2\u00a0 Denying treatment?\u00c2\u00a0 Or needing any of coverage or eligibilities in the first place?<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that women in our largest ethnic minority group do not have a good outlook when it comes to breast cancer.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 And improving the outlook is about more than screening programs and access to medicines.\u00c2\u00a0 Striking at the heart of a serious disease means a serious look at our entire system of care and asking where treatment for breast cancer and survival of women lie within our values.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tina asked for bloggers to participate as guest bloggers for October, on the theme of Breast Cancer Awareness, in honor of her Mother, a breast cancer survivor.\u00c2\u00a0 Here is my cross-listed post. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.\u00c2\u00a0 It is also Hispanic Heritage Month. And breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[94,97,98,102],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5331"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5331"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5333,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5331\/revisions\/5333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}