Muslim Americans Reaching for Health and Building Alliances (MARHABA): Development of a tailored health campaign to increase breast and cervical cancer screening among Muslim women in in New York City

Background: A small but growing literature suggests Muslim women have lower rates of breast and cervical cancer screening compared to the overall population, but there is a lack of research on how their unique cultural, religious, and social beliefs and practices affect screening behaviors and outcomes. One of the goals of MARHABA was to use the principles of social marketing and message framing to develop and evaluate culturally tailored messaging promoting breast and cervical cancer screening among Muslim women.

Methods: Using findings from key informants (n=12) and in-depth interviews with Muslim women (n=98), a series of message concepts and storyboards were developed. Four focus groups were conducted with diverse Muslim women in NYC (n=37) to assess the acceptability and understandability of various messages regarding breast and cervical cancer. Analysis of data from focus group transcriptions utilized the techniques of narrative analysis and constant comparison analytic approach.

Results: All women agreed that culturally congruent messaging was more likely to motivate them to get screened, and most women preferred messaging and imagery that highlighted the benefits of screening (gain frame) rather than messaging using a loss frame. However, there were differences in messaging and delivery by ethnic group. For instance, Arabic women preferred messaging and imagery highlighting the role of women as a mother while South Asian women preferred highlighting a survivor from the community for the health campaign.

Conclusions: Study findings will offer an evidence-based message that can be subsequently evaluated at the population-level to reduce cancer disparities in this community.