Cancer Clear and Simple Workshop, Final
Wednesday, January 18th, 2017 -- 10:24 AM
-The Clark County UW-Extension and Clark County HCE are holding a “Cancer Clear and Simple” workshop on Tuesday, January 24th.The workshop is being held at the Clark County Courthouse, in the auditorium, from 10am-12pm. I spoke with Nancy Vance, the Family Living Agent, and Melissa Kono, the county CNRED Agent, about the workshop. To end our interview, Nancy and Melissa talked about rural health disparities.
Nancy: "It's clear there's a lot of geographical variation in cancer risk factors such as incidents in mortality. The people who live in rural areas, which is where Clark County is, often face significant health care access challenges. We have fewer physicians. We have harder access to facilities. We have longer distances to travel."
Melissa: "Transportation barriers."
Nancy: "Transportation and even, in some cases, health insurance. Clark County currently has the least amount of people enrolled in health insurance. So, a lot of that prevents people from going to see physicians which plays into the importance of screening and seeing your doctor. Along with the rural environment is the higher risk factors like tobacco use and obesity and physically being inactive all play into rural areas having bigger challenges with this."
Melissa: "And I think that's one of the disparities is that living in a rural community we feel like maybe we're not exposed to pollution or we're safe from things because we live in the great outdoors. But then, we have a higher risk of developing certain types of cancers or cancers going undetected just because of these structural barriers like lack of access to healthcare, people being uninsured or under insured and then greater exposure to some things as well. Occupational hazards. Even melanoma is an occupational hazard for a farmer who spends time out in the environment."
Nancy: "And cancer is not just one disease, but it's a group of over 200 different diseases, so cancer develops in all different parts of your body and it's just kind of a complicated diagnosis."
Melissa: "The four most common sites for cancer to develop are the lung, the colon, the breast and the prostate. But there are overlooked cancers like cervical cancer. People don't realize the cervical cancer can develop from exposure to HPV, which there's a vaccine for."
Once again, the “Cancer Clear and Simple” workshop is being held on Tuesday, January 24th in the Clark County Courthouse auditorium from 10am-12pm. For those that would like to attend, the UW-Extension asks that you register with their office.
In Case You Missed It:
Part 1: http://cwbradio.com/news/index.php?p=news&fn_incl=1&fn_mode=fullnews&fn_id=18203
Part 2: http://cwbradio.com/news/?fn_mode=fullnews&fn_id=18220
Part 3: http://cwbradio.com/news/?fn_mode=fullnews&fn_id=18225
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.