Breast and cervical cancer screening rates among Black women in the Atlanta Empowerment Zone

Black women have the highest mortality rates for breast and cervical cancer. Morehouse School of Medicine's Prevention Research Center was awarded a grant by the CDC REACH program to establish a Center of Excellence for the Elimination of Disparities. The programmatic focus was to develop, implement, and evaluate health promotion initiatives to reduce health disparities experienced by Black women for these cancer sites in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. An evaluation element was the collection of surveillance data through the REACH Risk Factor study that focused on Blacks, age 18 and above, residing in the impoverished, inner city area of Atlanta known as the Atlanta Empowerment Zone (AEZ). The goals of the present study were to assess the breast and cervical cancer screening rates within the AEZ, compared to Fulton County, the Atlanta metropolitan area, and the state of Georgia. REACH Risk Factor Study data were compared to regional and national data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). Additional analyses were conducted to examine whether known social determinants (e.g. having health insurance) mediated protective behaviors among study participants. Preliminary results show that breast and cervical cancer screening rates in the AEZ (78.8% and 89.4%) are on par with Fulton County (79.69% and 93.31%), the Atlanta metropolitan area (76.38% and 91.16%), and the state of Georgia (77.89% and 88.49%). Implications of this study portend to inform the impact of the project's preventive and health promotion efforts as well as inform future intervention efforts.