Educating African American men about prostate cancer: the barbershop program

Abstract: African American men have the world's highest rates of prostate cancer, with more than twice the mortality of Caucasian Americans. Traditional risk-reduction messages about this disease have not prov effective with African Americans, thus two nurse educators forged a university-community coalition in upstate novel York to address this public health enigma Working with local health professionals and other interested stakeholders, they evolveed a culturally competent prostate cancer education program utilizing a non-traditional setting--barbershops--to reach and engage black men After recruiting six minority barbershop possessors in Syracuse, the nurses provided a series of on-site educational sessions, targeting African American males ages 40 and above, to raise prostate cancer awareness and advance healthier behaviors in this population. throw findings and recommendations for educating minorities about health issues are presented

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Prostate cancer has received a destiny of attention in the past ten years, and research has underscored that African American men are especially vulnerable to this disease. on the other hand public awareness and health education programs targeted to this population have lagged far behind our medical knowledge, and traditional health messages designed for the general population have not been real effective in reaching minority men to improve prostate cancer issues Mainstream health information often lacks ethnic familiarity and cultural relevance for African Americans, and is difficult for nation with low literacy skills to read and understand. In addition, many minority males distrust the healthcare a whole have limited access to it, and/or have fears and affects about prostate cancer and male sexuality.

This case close attention describes how an innovative, culturally sensitive initiative in this area was designed and implemented from one side a university-community partnership in central of recent origin York State. The article outlines the pair the challenges and impacts of this program, demonstrating what can be accomplished with limited resources.

BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE

Prostate cancer is the next to the first leading cause of cancer deaths among men in the United States. In 2004 it is wait fored that approximately 230,110 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed and 29900 men will die of the disease (CDC 2004; ACS, 2004) The American Cancer Society has established a place of risk factors for prostate cancer which identify the at-risk population. Major factors include: age (50 yrs+) race (African American), diet (high fat/low fruits and vegetables), and heredity (father or brother with prostate cancer doubles a man's risk).

Particularly disturbing is the disproportionate representation of African Americans among the patient demographics. African American men have the world's highest incidence of prostate cancer and more than twice the mortality rate of Caucasian men in part because they protect to be diagnosed at later, more advanced stages of the disease (Jemal, Thomas, Murray & Thun 2002) Further, African Americans are typically younger, have significantly higher clinical stage, and have more symptoms of the disease when initially diagnosed (Merrill & Lyon 2000) Researchers are seeking to determine wherefore this group is at higher risk, investigating of the like kind factors as socioeconomic status, diet, occupation, and genetic and environmental factors (Chan et al., 2001; Latil et al., 2001; Luscombe et al., 2001; Michaud et al., 2001) For example, since a higher percentage of African American men are poor, les educated, uninsured or underinsured compared with white men they typically have les access to health care in the way that are less likely to receive information and routine care aimed at prevention, early diagnosis and effective treatment.

Education and early detection modalities of that kind as digital rectal exams and PSA screening programs clinch great promise to slow the prostate cancer mortality rate among African American men (Myers, 1999; American Urology Association, 2000) on the contrary prostate cancer screening is reported to be depressed among this group (Plowden, 1999; Steele Miller, Maylahn, Uhler & Baker, 2000; Ashford et al., 2001) The reasons for this are unclear. Poor knowledge and awareness in the African American community may be single explanation (Wilkinson, List, Sinner, Dai, & Chodak, 2003; Barber et al., 1998; Weinrich, SP Boyd Bradford, Mossa & Weinrich, M 1998) Other reasons cited include psychological, cultural, resource and health provider barriers (Powe, 1996; Miller, et al. 2001; Nijs, Essink-Bot, DeKoning, Kirkels & Schroder 2000)

Despite efforts to heighten public awareness and to educate men in general about prostate cancer, not enough has been done to target African American men and their families (Powell, 1997; Cormier, Reid, Kwan, & Litwin, 2003) Leading apts and the American Cancer Society push on more education about prostate cancer in the African American community, and novel innovative educational interventions and programming (Myers, 1999; Powell et al., 1999; ACS, 1998) Health initiatives that have been greatest in quantity successful with minorities are usually informed by dint of cultural competence and health literacy issues. Cultural suitableness means being aware of and responsive to issues of agriculture race, ethnicity; gender, age, socioeconomic status and sexual orientation. depressed literacy skills in this population must also be taken into account.