Cancer Prevention

PLN-Led Cancer Outreach

Cancer can be a confusing and scary topic. It's important to breakdown these stigmas because many cancers can be prevented, and finding cancer early is critical to treatment plans. Studies show that most Alaskans aren't up-to-date on their recommended cancer screenings. Through education and outreach, PLNs will help change that.

BACKGROUND

Beginning in 2022, PLNs partnered with Alaska Department of Health cancer prevention programs (Alaska Comprehensive Cancer Control Program and Alaska Breast and Cervical Screening Assistance Program) to create a plain language one page flyer about relevant cancer information. In 2023, our partners began to translate the finished product into multiple languages.

CURRICULUM

To accompany the one-page flyers, our partners at Alaska Department of Health created a poster to help PLNs present this information to classrooms at Alaska Literacy Program's annual Health Days, or to individuals at Health Fairs around Alaska.

With the material complete, the Alaska Department of Health program representatives created a simple, replicable training slideshow to teach Peer Leader Navigators how to use these tools. PLN partners broke down the poster and one-page flyer into parts they could describe in detail. This training helped deepen PLN's knowledge about each important topic highlight area, and is designed in a way that allows them to reuse the slideshow to share with their own community education efforts.

OTHER RESOURCES

The Alaska Breast and Cervical Screening Assistance Program contributed to the outreach strategy and translated their service flyers into other languages (see below).