Educating the 'Plain' Community
Outreach program brings cancer education to the amish

On any given day, travelers driving through the quaint, rolling farmlands of western Pennsylvania may encounter Amish neighbors commuting to local towns by horse-drawn buggy where their traditional way of life intersects with the modern world.

Thanks in part to a grant funded by the National Cancer Institute, clusters of Amish throughout western Pennsylvania are gaining access to valuable cancer education and screenings utilizing education methods sensitive to their needs.

The Amish education program was developed as part of the Radiation Oncology Community Outreach Grant (ROCOG) project, which promotes the use of non-traditional outreach to make state-of-the-art cancer care available to disadvantaged communities.

Dwight E. Heron, MD, principal investigator of the grant and director, Radiation Oncology Services, UPMC Cancer Centers, underscores the importance of building trusting relationships and making cancer education understandable and relevant to people in communities like the Amish.

“Trust was an essential component,” explains Dr. Heron. “By understanding their needs and respecting their values, we have been able to make great strides in bringing cancer education to the Amish communities throughout western Pennsylvania.”

Through an existing relationship with professionals from the Pennsylvania Department of Health, nurse educators from the ROCOG project were introduced to Amish communities in western Pennsylvania. The nurses held discussion groups with Amish women from two different sects to assess the communities’ needs and to identify ways to provide cancer education.

The idea to print articles in a local newspaper with a section dedicated to the Amish came from the discussion groups. The articles are written by the cancer education staff and edited by an Amish volunteer to accommodate language barriers. The articles are printed every few months and cover a variety of topics, ranging from basic information about specific cancer types to dealing with death.

In October 2007, ROCOG coordinators brought the first breast and cervical cancer screening to an Amish community in Somerset, Pa., located southeast of Pittsburgh. Seventeen women came to the screening, with three of the women showing abnormal test results. These three women, who were not insured, were then assimilated into the Healthy Woman Project, a state program dedicated to helping economically disadvantaged women gain better access to care. “

Community outreach and patient navigation go hand-in-hand,” says Karen Schwaderer, RN, BSN, OCN, director, Patient Navigation and Clinical Services. “You can’t go into an underserved, uninsured community like the Amish, and not help them to gain access to treatment.”