Against ALL Odds

By Gabby Morales

After doing some research I found an area that I would like to concentrate on, despite wanting to study health in the Hispanic population as a whole. Reading article after article on health-related issues that affect Hispanic women more than others, I decided to narrow my focus on breast cancer, specifically in Hispanic women, age 50 and up.

Reports, like one I read from CNN, discuss a major problem with Hispanic women and breast cancer and that is that Hispanic women tend to wait longer to visit a doctor because they have no insurance/cannot afford healthcare, deem the change they see as not worthy of attention, fear of diagnoses, and no time to schedule an appointment to see a doctor (CNN). The report also highlights how Hispanic women have another barrier going against them; some are not able to speak English, therefore, decide to not get checked or worse, are not aware of the options available to them at a free cost like free mammograms. Another very interesting find had to do with the relation of breast cancer and Hispanic women, “Despite the fact that Hispanic women have lower incidence rates for breast cancer than White non-Hispanic women, Hispanic women who do develop breast cancer are more likely to die of the disease” (Malley, Kerner, Johnson, & Mandelblatt, 1999, p. 219). The reasons cited before this quote seem to cover some of the major bases for why this disease affects the lives of so many Hispanic woman. These reasons seem to be the ones that contribute 100% to late detection and therefore make Hispanic women have a lesser chance of survival.

Reading about the reasons Hispanic women have given to research, the area of socioeconomic status plays a big role in this disease. My interest lies in women of lower socioeconomic status and by that I mean those women who fall under the medium average for household income in El Paso, TX. The medium income for households in El Paso is around $36,500. I want to focus on those women who average an annual income of less than $11,000 a year and I might take it a step further and concentrate on women who reside in public housing in some of the poorest zip codes in El Paso which are 79901, 79903, and 79905 (Alamito, Sherman, and Salazar).

Another criteria I would have to understand in order to fulfill this PD project would be the concept of regular check-ups and what this means to my project. Many asked what “regularly” stood for and I will tell you. According to the National Cancer Institute women over 40 years of age should get mammograms done every 1 to 2 years. Women who are more at risk because of breast issues and/or family history should have mammograms more often and before the age of 40. They would have to consult their doctor to get a specific schedule. For some women I have spoken to who are at risk they get a mammograms at least twice a year.

I want to be able to find those women who do not let their socioeconomic status get in the way of getting screened for breast cancer and are on top of their game when it comes to getting checked once every 1-2 years or twice a year if they are at risk. So in essence my question would be transformed to add these two, specific criteria.

Are there Hispanic women who are of low socioeconomic status (earning less than $11,000), live in public housing (Alamito, Salazer, Sherman), who speak little to no English and still have mammograms at least one every 1-2 years?

My objective for this study is to find those Hispanic women who have been able to fall out of line with the rest of the statistics and have been making it a point to have mammograms even though they have all odds going against them. I have spoken to some already who live around the areas I want to focus on. The results have been very interesting to say the least, but I want to be able to find more positive deviants who go against the statistics and what they do in order to accomplish this. In the research I did, I found close to nothing regarding women who aren’t part of the statistics. Some research even deem Hispanic women and breast cancer as the “understudied group.”