Church-Based Intervention on Prostate Cancer Screening for African American Men
Intervention: Aims of the Pilot Program
Given the above background, the aim of this pilot program will focus on an educational strategy that promotes screening behavior among African American men in church – based setting in Hollywood, Florida. Implementing a program that increases knowledge, empowerment and encourages behavioral change are extremely important to decrease the health disparity that exists among African American men.
The specific goals of this educational program include: (1) increase knowledge about the benefits prostate cancer screening; (2) promote confidence in men’s ability to participate in the decision making process of prostate screening; (3) to develop and test the effectiveness of an education intervention (Drake et al., 2010; Odedina, 2011). Overall, the aim of this program will focus on empowerment strategies that can ultimately promote screening behavior in African American men in a faith -based setting.
Background and Significance
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men (American Cancer Society, 2013).
OUTCOME: Innovation
This educational intervention will be guided by the Ottawa Decision Support Framework (Rosenstock, Strecher& Becker, 1998) and the Health Belief Model (Goldman et al., 2003).
Overview and Design of Program
The purpose of this program is to assess the impact of an educational intervention on prostate cancer screening behavior and knowledge.
Target Population and Sample Size
The target population will be African American males 40–70 years of age in Broward County, Florida, at a specific Church located in the Hollywood area.
Church-Based Intervention on Prostate Cancer Screening for African American Men
In today’s healthcare, racial disparities in prostate cancer incidence and mortality are a national concern (Husaini et al., 2008). African American men unfortunately have the highest incidence of disease rates and are close to 2.5 times more likely to die from prostate cancer when compared to Caucasian men (American Cancer Society, 2013). For African American males, the risk of developing prostate cancer is now 1 in 5 (American Cancer Society, 2013; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2014).
In addition, African American men also have a higher rate of death due to prostate cancer than any other ethnic groups (CDC, 2014). This fact is evident, considering the life expectancy for African American men is several years shorter than other ethnic groups (Arias, 2011). According to American Cancer Society (2013), prostate cancer exhibits the most pronounced racial disparity of all cancers in the United States.
In response to increase prevalence of prostate cancer among African American men, a pilot program in a church-based setting will be developed to increase knowledge about prostate cancer screening by decreasing the health disparity that exists among this vulnerable group of men. The problem under study will narrow down to prostate cancer screening for African American men with core aim of uncovering racial disparities displayed by prostate cancer among African American men.
To establish the prostate cancer problem of the target population the program will focus on two key areas: (1) the incidences and prevalence of prostate cancer among the African American men and (2) the consequences of prostate cancer in term of both morbidity and mortality. The comparison of both existing and newly collected data is essential for the success of the program objectives.
The health program aims to explain the prevailing prostate cancer problem among the selected population with a goal of designing possible disease preventive measures with an intention of improving health among the selected population and the general nation. The goal of the program is to raise public awareness among the African American by increasing appropriate use of prostate cancer information, increase the number of African American participating in decision making with medical professions, and improve the access and use of quality care and treatment.
The program further aims to enhance health care knowledge and practices in prostate cancer prevention, testing as well as treatment among African Americans and the whole population in general. Finally, through the program quality research can be established on the basis of data collected, analysis and evaluation in order to meet the goal of reducing the incidence of prostate cancer (Marks & Heller, 2010).
A comparison of healthcare and racial disparities in prostate cancer among African American indicates a worrying statistics. The statistics show more African Americans are vulnerable to the disease unlike other ethnic groups. The pilot program designed by the research team will focus on initial analysis for program planning with a core aim of identifying a problem and a population. Secondly, it will define the program design elements highlighting the involved stakeholders of the target population and the strategies for involving them. Thirdly, it will reveal the program and financial analysis the period of the research and offer the justification to settle for the budget. Finally, an evaluation planning will be necessary for the research team since it determines if the research details were followed to the latter before conclusions are drawn. The program targets to reduce the impact of prostate cancer among African Americans by encouraging awareness, education,availability of medical support and research.
Aims of the Pilot Program
Given the above background, the aim of this pilot program will focus on an educational strategy that promotes screening behavior among African American men in church – based setting in Hollywood, Florida. Implementing a program that increases knowledge, empowerment and encourages behavioral change are extremely important to decrease the health disparity that exists among African American men.
The specific goals of this educational program include: (1) increase knowledge about the benefits prostate cancer screening; (2) promote confidence in men’s ability to participate in the decision making process of prostate screening; (3) to develop and test the effectiveness of an education intervention (Drake et al., 2010; Odedina, 2011). Overall, the aim of this program will focus on empowerment strategies that can ultimately promote screening behavior in African American men in a faith – based setting.
Background and Significance
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men (American Cancer Society, 2013). According to Jemal et al. (2011), prostate cancer is the sixth leading cause of death in men worldwide, accounting for 6% total cancer deaths in men in 2008. In 2010, there were 217,730 American men diagnosed with prostate cancer and 32,050 died from it (Altekruse et al., 2010). In 2013, approximately 238,590 new cases are expected to be diagnosed and 29,790 deaths from prostate cancer will occur in the United States. In Florida, an estimated number of new cases of prostate cancer is17,330 and 2,770 estimated deaths (American Cancer Society, 2013). To add to this burden, prostate cancer is not uniform across racial and ethnic groups (Friedman et al., 2012).
According to American Cancer Society (2013), African American men bear a disproportionate burden for prostate cancer incidence and mortality, having the highest incidence, poorest survival, and a twofold higher mortality when compared with other racial and ethnic groups in the United States. African American men have 1 in 5 lifetime probability of developing prostate cancer compared to 1 in 7 for Caucasians.
The death rate for prostate cancer is 2.4 times higher in African American men than in Caucasian men. African Americans are the only group that has not met the Healthy People 2010 goal of reducing prostate cancer mortality rate to 28.8/100,000 by 2010. With the continuous disparities between African American and other ethnic groups on prostate cancer incidence, survival, and deaths, a key way to close the gap is individual health promotion and disease prevention behaviors to reduce the behavioral risk factors for prostate cancer (American Cancer Society, 2013; Odedina, 2011)…………………………………………