How do Lay Health Navigators Impact Breast Cancer Screening? (MICEO Supplement);

Breast cancer mortality is greatly reduced when women have mammograms every two years. Increased mortality is seen if this does not happen. Among African American and Black women, the mortality has been reported as 40% higher than non-Hispanic Whites. In New York City, our screening rates are lower than the Health People 2030 goal of 80.5%. We find that African American women in communities with high proportions for African Americans, have screening rates below this target goal. This project will examine the potential of recruiting Lay Health Navigator (LHN) college students from underserved communities to navigate African American and Black women attending our culturally targeted evidence-based education programs to sites for a mammogram, as needed. We will examine factors related to the recruitment of LHN, including: recruitment and retention of the LHNs, the fidelity of their work and the cost effectiveness of utilizing navigators in this way. Our approach to recruitment of LHNs specific to this project is based on the sustainability of the evidence-based culturally and linguistically targeted health education program, the Witness Project of Harlem, and the development of our current LHN program for increasing adherence to lung cancer screening. The Witness Project of Harlem has been developed to target the beliefs and myths identified as facilitators and barriers to cancer screening for Black and African Americans women. Our outreach initiatives target organizations in neighborhoods NYC with the highest age-adjusted breast cancer mortality rates per 100,000 residents. Using the navigation assessment tool developed to assess all components of navigation, we will examine the work of our LHNs including their sustainability and fidelity, our success rate of mammography increased adherence and the cost effectiveness of a lay health navigation program. .