Increasing breast cancer screening rates among Hopi women

The Hopi Women's Health Program (HWHP) has been participating in the CDC sponsored Breast and Cervical Cancer Program (BCCP) since 1996. The HWHP partnered the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University, through the Native American Cancer Research Partnership, to evaluate its BCCP program and to conduct a population based survey about breast cancer knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors among Hopi women age 18 and older. Community meetings and focus groups were held to create a culturally appropriate survey instrument. Participants were randomly selected from Hopi Tribal Enrollment lists. Interviews were conducted in-person by trained Hopi women in Hopi and/or English and yielded an extraordinarily high (87%) response rate. Among women age 40 and older (40+), 80.13% reported ever having a Clinical Breast Exam, the same rate (80.90%) reported in the 1993 Hopi survey conducted by Guiliano et al. 77.5 % of women reported ever having had a mammogram and 68.9% reported having done so within the past 2 years, an increase from the 45.2% and 46% utilization rates reported in 1993. More women in 2006 (88.1%) believed that a mammogram can detect cancer, compared to those surveyed in 1993 (59%). Finally, women showed a preference (60%) for receiving health care locally - at the HWHP. These self-reported mammogram screening rates and location of service are substantiated by the programmatic data submitted to the CDC which indicate that 77% of all Hopi women age 40+ were screened for breast cancer and 58.9% of those screenings were done at the HWHP.