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We asked how we could hit these kids with the prevention message when they are very young, not just about cancer but about all of these serious health issues,” said Cindy Chafin, project director and consultant for the Middle Tennessee State University Center for Health and Human Service and a member of the Coalition. In response to that question, the TC4 childhood action team decided to create learning modules on several cancer topics – including nutrition – all aimed at young children in day care centers.
“We used the book ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar,’ a story that ties into nutrition, and we did a coloring activity related to the book,” Chafin explained. “We read stories about the food pyramid, sang songs and had some big displays from the ‘More Matters’
campaign to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables.
“In the past few months we have taken this curriculum to five day care centers in seven locations throughout the central part of the state. It’s a pilot program that we hope to expand.”
This day care education campaign is just one example of the outreach projects created and delivered by the TC4, a young organization whose members started meeting informally in 2001. By 2003, the Tennessee Department of Health received the first two-year planning grant from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While small, the grant allowed TC4 members to do more than dream about how to attack cancer in Tennessee. It allowed them to develop a blueprint for change.
“At the end of the two years we had our first statewide cancer control plan ready to roll out into grassroots efforts,” said Debra Wujcik, R.N., Ph.D., co-chair of the TC4. She is also the director of Clinical Trials at Meharry Medical Center for Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and an associate professor in the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing.
Wujcik maintains there is much to do at the grassroots level
if the Coalition wants to reduce cancer rates in the state. Tennessee sits squarely in the middle of the Southern Cancer Belt, a swath of states with a much higher incidence of cancer than the rest of the United States. Lung cancer is near the top of that list.
“Tennessee has major issues with tobacco use and obesity, and those two issues alone are responsible for most of the cancer and cardiac problems of patients,” Wujcik said. “If we could make changes in the way people eat, the amount of exercise they get and stop them from smoking, we would make a huge dent in the cancer problem in Tennessee.”
As part of this mission, the Coalition worked with other groups to promote the new statewide ban on smoking in most public places as well as the Tennessee Tobacco QuitLine, a telephone-based smoking cessation program. The programs appear to be working. Adult smoking rates in Tennessee dropped from 26.8 percent in 2005 to 22.6 percent in 2006, and QuitLine calls jumped from 700 a month in 2006 to 3,300 in October 2007.
Persuading Tennesseans to change their habits requires education and outreach to groups that may not have access to good health care information. That’s why Sheila Bates, LMSW, Vanderbilt-Ingram manager for Community Outreach, spends so much time traveling around the state with a message about cancer prevention.
“Regular exercise has been documented to reduce the risk of colorectal cancer by 40 percent, which is just amazing,” said Bates, who is the chair of the Colorectal Cancer Resource Group for the Coalition. “That’s one of the facts I use when I set up colorectal cancer bingo games at community centers.”
The bingo game – developed by the Vanderbilt-Ingram Office of Patient and Community Education – has been a big hit, Bates said. Each square of the bingo card contains facts about colorectal cancer risks, screening tests and how to reduce your risks.
“We read the facts aloud, the participants find them on the squares and mark them off, and at the end of the game everybody gets a prize,” she explained. Vanderbilt-Ingram donates funds for those prizes.
Bates also spreads the message about the importance of colorectal cancer screening.
“The amazing thing about colorectal cancer is it is preventable if you’re screened – especially if you get a colonoscopy – because if the physician finds a polyp, the polyp can be removed before it becomes cancer. It’s so exciting when you work in oncology to have a good message to give to people,” Bates said with a smile.
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