Breast Health Summit

I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post! Between spending time on my practicum event, keeping up with school, working my two jobs, and job hunting, my blogging has gone by the way-side. Things have calmed down a little though now that my practicum event is basically complete! My practicum has been organizing, implementing, and evaluating a Breast Health Summit. The Summit itself happened on March 10th in Cedar Rapids. The event was a day-long and focused on African American women, although health care providers and public health professionals were welcome to attend as well. 78 people ended up attending and it went really well.

Here's the save the date I made for the event

One of the biggest take-home lessons I got from the whole experience was a reminder on the importance of working with members of the targeted community in all stages of planning, implementing, and evaluating the event. Women who are leaders in the Cedar Rapids African American faith community were involved right from day one in planning this event. Without their involvement and all the time they dedicated to this project, the event would have been a lot less well attended and not nearly as effective.

The Gazette wrote a great piece about breast cancer in African American women and the Summit before it happened. Some members of the planning committee and two speakers at the Summit are interviewed in it. That article is available here.


In other news, I am planning on following the Affordable Care Act supreme court case closely these next few days! NPR has had some great articles about the case recently, including this one.

Trip to the State Capitol!

Yesterday I traveled with a social worker and a group of nurses from the Oncology Nursing Society to Des Moines to talk to state senators about cancer issues. On the way up, I gave an overview of the Iowa Cancer Consortium and the ICC’s legislative priorities for the year. It was really interesting to hear about what the nurses wanted to talk to legislators about.

A lot of them expressed frustration over the current medical home system, which was created to help people under the IowaCare plan. IowaCare covers low-income people who don’t qualify for Medicaid but aren’t insured, but unfortunately if they have cancer, they have to go to the UIHC in Iowa City to get their treatment, even if they live on the other side of the state. Many of these patients have difficulty paying for transportation to get to Iowa City and don’t have a place to stay once they get here. A medical home model had been created to allow IowaCare patients to get their primary care needs met closer to home at certain clinics, but this has caused many of its own problems, as there is no standardization for what the clinics can provide for these patients. Fortunately, a lot of this will change once the Affordable Care Act is implemented, since the majority of people in IowaCare will qualify for Medicaid once it’s been expanded (and then won't be required to go to Iowa City for specialty care), but until that happens, these patients still need help.

We were able to meet with four senators, including the senator from my hometown (Sen. Hogg of Cedar Rapids, who high-fived me when he found out I went to high school where his kids go) and my own senator Joe Bolkcom. Both Hogg and Bolkcom and another senator we met with, Sen. Dvorsky, are already really involved in cancer prevention and control efforts, which is wonderful. We were only able to talk with each of them for about ten minutes, but we left them each a folder filled with information about our legislative priorities and a copy of the Iowa Cancer Plan. It was a good trip!

The Mammotives Project Begins!

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The Iowa Cancer Summit just launched their social media campaign project, which is funded by the American Cancer Society, to help understand why women decide to get - or not get - screened for breast cancer. The project is call Mammotives. In addition to Mammotives.org, Mammotives is on Facebook and Twitter. All Iowa women, ages 40+, are welcome to join the conversation. Please spread the word too! We want to reach as many Iowa women age 40 and older as possible. For more information about the project in general, click here.   


I'm really excited for this project, which has been planned by my coworker Kelly Sittig, fellow MPH student Megan Lessard, and people at the American Cancer Society, along with other partners at the Iowa Department of Public Health and the Care For Yourself Program. Although I haven't been very involved in this project, my one claim to fame is that I helped come up with the name! Full disclosure: this awesome website, Wordriod, helped. Wordriod creates a bunch of natural-sounding new words based on what you type in and checks to see if they already exist on the internet. It's really fun!

Iowa Cancer Summit

The Iowa Cancer Summit was Monday and yesterday, and fortunately I was able to go yesterday. The Summit is an annual statewide event that brings together over 100 people involved in cancer control practices. A major theme at this year's Summit was the unveiling of the newly revised Iowa Cancer Plan, which is available to download online here. The plan is meant to guide cancer control practices across the state for the next 6 years and is separated into four major sections: Prevention, Screening, Treatment, and Quality of Life.

The keynote speaker this year was Dr. Laura Seeff, the Comprehensive Cancer Control Branch Chief for the CDC. Her talk was great; one of the take home messages was about the importance of policy and systems-level change, and that we should be sure to include efforts to change those instead of focusing only (or even primarily) on individuals. She also talked about the importance of working together with other chronic disease control efforts and groups dedicated to improving health in other ways to make sure we aren't all duplicating efforts and not being as effective as we could otherwise be.

One of my favorite parts of the Summit, however, was the Cancer Survivors Panel breakout session. Three cancer survivors spoke on the panel about their experiences. The speakers were Gail Orcutt, a radon-induced lung cancer survivor who is a tireless radon advocate and simply a wonderful person; Greg Cantwell, a stage 4 brain cancer survivor; and Gabbi DeWitt, whose mom passed away from cancer this spring. (The ICC, like the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, defines cancer survivors as those who have been diagnosed with cancer, those who are affected by a loved one's cancer, and caregivers). One major theme of their stories was the importance of having care coordinated. As a cancer patient, you see many different specialists, and sometimes they do not communicate with each other, meaning that major problems/complications can be overlooked and it can be very confusing. I was especially thankful for Gabbi's insights into the benefits of hospice. I think many times the focus in cancer treatment is how survivors are going to win their battle with cancer, but sometimes that is not possible, and that can be very difficult for people to accept or even want to talk about. Gabbi, who works in hospice herself, said that her mom was able to be on hospice care for 11 weeks before she passed, and that those 11 weeks were wonderful and "like a breathe of fresh air." Her mom was able to stay at home and spend time with her friends and family. For more information about hospice, here's a fact sheet from the National Cancer Institute.

This was the second Cancer Summit I've been able to go to, and it's always great to see so many great people dedicated to fighting cancer.
 
Anyway, before I got, here are some articles I've read this past week that you might find interesting:

Study Cites Increase in Throat Cancers from HPV - Denise Grady, NYT
Further support for the importance of the HPV vaccine and for the importance of vaccinating boys.


Hormonal Contraceptives May Raise HIV Risk for Men and Women - Scott Hensley, NPR Health Blog


Top 5 Unnecessary Health-care Costs - Jonathan D. Rockoff, WSJ Health Blog
"Doctors’ prescribing a brand-name statin, without first  checking to see if a lower-priced generic drug would cut a patient’s cholesterol sufficiently, results in $5.8 billion in excess health-care spending, according to the research letter published Oct. 1."


Should a Candidate's Weight be Part of the Conversation? - Katherine Hobson, WSJ Health Blog
My opinion to this question is a definite no.

Iowa's Colorectal Cancer Dialogue

Last Friday, I went to Iowa's first Colorectal Cancer Dialogue, which was organized by the Iowa Cancer Consortium, the American Cancer Society, and the Iowa Get Screened Program. The day-long conference was all about colorectal cancer (CRC) - a type of cancer I didn't realize was as common as it is until I started working for the ICC. This may sound ridiculous, but I didn't even know until recently that one of my grandparents was a CRC survivor. (I found out when I was asking one of my parents about our family medical history; my grandparent had been diagnosed and treated for CRC long before I was born and died when I was in elementary school.)

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality (lung cancer is the leading cause). The fact that it causes so much mortality is especially upsetting considering that its one of the few cancers for which there are screening tests available and if its found early, the chance of 5-year survival after diagnosis is 90%.

Much of the discussions at the Dialogue focused on how to increase CRC screening rates, either by targeting physicians and other health care providers to recommend screening or by educating adults about the various screening options/providing the tests themselves. When people think of CRC screening, they usually only think of colonoscopy, but there are actually three different kinds of screening tests that have been shown to be effective for average-risk adults aged 50 to 75, including getting an annual fecal immunochemical test (FIT). The speakers included Dr. Durado Brooks (national director of the CRC and prostate cancer division of the American Cancer Society), the University's own Dr. Charles Lynch and Dr. Barcey Levy, and ACS's Lorrie Graaf. Many materials from the Dialogue, including presentations, are available to everyone on the ICC website.

Here are some random public health articles you might be interested in:

Conservatives Step Up Attacks On Public Funding For Birth Control - Julie Rovner
Rep. Steve King from Iowa apparently doesn't realize that women can be on birth control and still have children some other time in their lives.

Time to Revive Home Ec -Helen Zoe Viet
"Too many Americans simply don’t know how to cook. Our diets, consisting of highly processed foods made cheaply outside the home thanks to subsidized corn and soy, have contributed to an enormous health crisis."

Med Schools Fall Short on LGBT Education - Eliza Barclay

And here's a picture of my cat, Alley, sitting on my lap while I tried to work on a literature review paper yesterday:

Working for a Non-profit

I love working for a non-profit. I've worked at Iowa Cancer Consortium (ICC), a state-wide cancer control non-profit, since June 2010 and it's been a really wonderful experience. While I know there's a lot of variation within the non-profit sector, generally speaking I think many non-profits can provide unique opportunities for students interested in public health. Since non-profits are often (unfortunately) working on a very tight budget and have activity-packed staff, students can often take on more responsibility than they may otherwise be able to in jobs in other areas.

Through working at the ICC, I've been able to work on a range of projects and expand my skills and knowledge considerably. My boss and coworkers have taught me a lot and continually provide me with guidance. I've been able to help plan conferences (like the upcoming Iowa Cancer Summit, which is open to anyone interested in cancer control efforts!), design materials, write grants, edit web pages, conduct literature reviews, contribute to revising the state cancer plan, facilitate membership meetings, learn a lot more about cancer control methods and cancer itself, and meet some cancer control leaders from across the state.

Granted, there are some downsides to working in the non-profit world: the disappointment when a proposed project doesn't get funded, the uncertainty when the fiscal year ends. But all in all, it's been an invaluable experience and I'm looking forward to working with them for the rest of the school year.

The Rape Victim Advocacy Program in Iowa City is another great non-profit I love being a part of. I don't work there, I'm just a volunteer advocate, but the women that work there are incredible and they do many very important things, like provide free counseling for survivors and conduct sexual assault prevention education.

Anyway, enough about non-profits! Here are some articles you might find interesting:

Women could be given the right to choose Caesarean Birth - James Gallagher
I've been interested in birth and its medicalization for a few years now. I feel a little conflicted about the right to choose to have a C-section. On the one hand, I could see how it may be empowering to have women be able to control their childbirth to this degree, but on the other hand, a C-section is a pretty major operation. Plus, childbirth is a natural process that sometimes becomes a medical emergency, but certainly isn't always. I lean towards the view that it's best to avoid getting a C-section unless it's absolutely necessary, but I can understand why some women may feel differently.

Obama Administration Abandons Stricter Air-Quality Rules - John M. Broder
Depressing, but on the bright side - at least Obama isn't actively trying to dismantle the EPA.

Fewer Americans Are Smoking, And Those Who Do Puff Less - Timothy W. Martin
Some good news and bad news in this article. Especially relevant to Iowans since we just lost millions in state anti-tobacco funding.

Texas wildfires destroy more than 700 homes in two days - CNN Wire Staff
Really terrifying stuff. I have some friends in Austin; hopefully the fires stop soon. I'm a little surprised about how long its taken for these fires to get national attention (although the Southern drought in general didn't get very much national attention this summer either, I thought).

And to end this post: I thought this youtube video was pretty funny.