The University of Alabama at Birmingham Breast and Cervical Cancer Coalition

The University of Alabama at Birmingham Breast and Cervical Cancer Coalition involves a variety of community-based, religious, grassroots, and health care organizations that serve the target population. The community action plan is designed to reduce disparities in breast and cervical cancer screening and outcomes between African American and white women through the use of community advisors. Core working groups of community health advisors, nurses, and church representatives disseminate information to support, encourage, and help women obtain cancer screening services and navigate the health care system. This approach is based on the Multilevel Approach Toward Community Health (MATCH) framework. Using health advisors, MATCH seeks to eliminate barriers that women face when trying to access health services.

The goal of this program is to reduce disparities in breast and cervical cancer screening and outcomes between African American and white women through the use of community advisors.

Using community-based health advisors as agents for behavioral change lends credibility to interventions to reduce the risk for breast and cervical cancer and increases the reach of the program in the community. This approach can extend lifesaving prevention programs and screening services across cultural divides to communities that would not likely be reached by traditional means.