Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation Forum
On September 16, 2008, the Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service facilitated a "World Cafe" discussion on the challenge of breast cancer, which brought people together to learn, engage, inform, connect, and become catalysts for action. The event was organized in partnership with the Central Wisconsin Affiliate of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, the American Cancer Society, and UW Cooperative Extension. Over 60 stakeholders participated in the discussion, including: physicians; breast cancer survivors; the Central Wisconsin Affiliate of the Foundation; the American Cancer Society; and Wisconsin governmental health departments from Langlade, Marathon, Portage, Shawano, Taylor and Wood Counties. The group exchanged their collective wisdom about closing the gaps occurring in education, screening, treatment, and support in the seven-county service area, with special emphasis on how to serve rural and minority women.
The World Café model of public dialogue was used to create a fluid conversation that connected all participants, guiding them through a series of questions and shared reflections. These summative reflections included a commitment among the group to:
- Increase awareness through education for men, women, and girls that extends beyond the health classroom into the community.
- Change how the issue is communicated, particularly in patient-provider and patient-insurer interactions, and among the poor, ethnic minorities, and families in rural areas.
- Improve access to diagnosis, treatment and cure by providing transportation, childcare, and assistance with financial and insurance issues.
- Expand outreach to currently underserved communities, such as Southeast Asian, Native American, and Latino/Latina populations as well as poorer and rural populations.
- Strengthen advocacy by energizing mentoring and support-related services that attend women not just in the treatment phase but also follow through with the long-term healing process.
- Improve health delivery through simplification, transparency, and systems thinking by the creation of community guidelines or standards for breast health that are widely available online and by periodic needs-assessment processes.
- Build supportive communities by creating a society of practitioners, survivors, and others that supports best practices, recognizes the gaps in effective screening, treatment and care, and then provides the resources to solve existing problems.
Susan G. Komen Central Wisconsin Breast Health Forum-- (PDF) (DOC)