Jefferson is making cancer screening easier to talk about with bingo, trivia games, and more

Cancer bingo, trivia quizzes, a giant inflatable colon: Jefferson Health’s community outreach team has tried it all to get people interested in cancer screening.

Jefferson also runs a mobile screening unit — a van equipped with equipment to perform mammograms, one of the routine screenings that are considered a critical first line of defense to detect signs of cancer early, when it can be most treatable.

But simply rolling up and presenting people the option of getting screened isn’t the same as convincing them to do it, said Yawei Song, the program manager for community outreach at Jefferson’s Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center.

Song is especially concerned about reaching Philadelphia’s Asian American community, with newly released data showing cancer rates are rising in this population nationally.

Data released this week by the American Cancer Society offered mixed results: breast cancer death rates are dropping, as more cancers are caught early and treated with increasingly advanced therapies.

But new breast cancer diagnoses continued to rise by about 1% a year between 2012 and 2021, with the greatest increase in cases among Asian American and Pacific Islander women, according to the organization’s biennial report.

» READ MORE: American Cancer Society’s CEO is stepping down. But she plans to stay in Philadelphia to advance cancer research.

Song and her team work hard to connect with communities by understanding their needs, the reasons why they haven’t gotten screened, and any unique challenges, she said. She speaks Chinese, and often uses language skills to connect with residents in Philadelphia’s Asian neighborhoods.

She spoke to The Inquirer about how Jefferson is trying to increase screening rates in under-served Asian communities. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

With the Asian community, cancer can still be a taboo topic.

There is a cultural aspect of viewing cancer as bad luck and some association of cancer as a death sentence. Though if we ask people with a cancer diagnosis, their outlook is different. We see trends that people are beginning to be more open to talking about it, but our team still takes the time to make it approachable. Communities are changing all the time; it’s never like one framework fits all.

When we do cancer education sessions, we may frame it as “preventive medicine” or “living healthy 101.” We frame it so “cancer” is not so up front.

We rely a lot on our community partners; we cherish their expertise. Community partners give us insight. For instance we recently partnered with SEAMAAC. [The Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Coalition is a Philadelphia-based organization that provides health and social support services to immigrants and refugees.] They have their senior group, they meet and hang out, and we really wanted to do an education session on cancer and aging. We got insight from them saying it can’t be too long, maybe make it a fun interactive question-answer format. We’ve done cancer bingo. We’re always trying to be creative.

Typically a community organization reaches out and says, “We’d like to do a screening event,” and we’ll find a day to do it. We are out at least four or five days a week. We’ve found it’s more successful when we have a strong community partner. We don’t just say, “Oh, we’re going to be here or there.”

The screening van just marked its three-year anniversary. They have seen almost 3,000 women in the past two years, and 22 had a cancer diagnosis. Specifically in the Asian community, they saw about 360 women in the two-year period.

About 25% of people screened through the mobile clinic over the past three years had never been screened before. I think that’s a good indicator for the screening service, that it is reaching out to the previous hard-to-reach community and offering cancer screening at locations that are convenient for them.

» READ MORE: Einstein Hospital incorrectly told a woman her mammogram results were normal. A year later, she was diagnosed with cancer.