Sisters Network Empowers Teens for Pink

Background: 

While African American women have a lower risk of developing breast cancer than Caucasians, they are more likely to die from the disease.  Studies suggest numerous reasons for these disparities, including more advanced disease at time of diagnosis and longer time between diagnosis and start of treatment.  In addition, African American women have far lower rates of BC screening than Caucasians.

 Sisters Network, Inc. (SNI) the national African American breast cancer survivorship organization has been addressing these disparities for two decades. This year SNI founder Karen Jackson spearheaded the launch of Teens 4 Pink (T4P), a new program that educates and empowers African American teens to change the way their family members think and act about breast health.

Program background: 

Leveraging the energy and tenacity of teens, T4P seeks to create sustainable change across the African American community, one family at a time.  Participating teens become ‘Pink Ambassadors’ and work to educate their families about breast health. They are provided with the knowledge and tools to start a dialogue with female family members about breast cancer, driving the importance of early detection and urging annual check-ups and mammograms.  The program has been piloted in Houston and Memphis, two cities where African American women with breast cancer face some of the highest mortality rates in the country.

T4P consists of in-person educational sessions and small-group training sessions conducted in partnerships with schools, churches and community youth groups like Girl Scouts,  where teens learn about various breast health topics, including how regular screening can detect breast cancer earlier and lead to better outcomes. Teens completing training sessions are asked to interview female blood relatives and encourage them to take action to address their own breast health.  An interactive website, www.teensforpink.org, and dynamic social media component engage teens on an ongoing basis and extend outreach beyond the pilot communities.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  To measure the program’s impact on behavior, participating teens track and submit data on the conversations and actions being taken within their families. Each teen receives an ID code, and is provided with a Family Breast Health questionnaire/workbook and link to an online survey monkey.  They are asked to interview 3-5 women in their immediate family, and enter results online within two weeks of the training session.  One question asks whether respondents would like SNI to provide access to a free mammogram.  As of this submission, nearly 100 women have requested follow-up support.  About 400 teens have fulfilled their T4P training session and completed their family surveys.  More than 1,500 teens have attended educational sessions (500 more than forecast), many of whom will participate in fall 2014 Pink Ambassador training.

Conclusions:  The T4P model is an effective and scalable way to empower teenage girls as highly effective BC navigators for their families.

Implications for research and/or practice:  This model can be applied to numerous areas of preventive health and disease- specific education and outreach, and used with both teenage girls and boys to reach multicultural and lower-literacy adult populations.