ECHO Awarded $100,000 Grant for Fight Against Breast Cancer

Online, May 28, 2010 (Newswire.com) - St. Paul, Minn., May 28, 2010 -- ECHO (Emergency, Community and Health Outreach) is excited to announce that it has been awarded a $100,000 grant by Susan B. Komen for the Cure Minnesota®. The grant will support outreach to the Latino, Hmong, Somali, and low literacy individuals and families in Minnesota to increase awareness of breast cancer prevention, detection, and treatment.

The grant will underwrite a portion of the cost to produce a television program, public service announcements for radio and phone, and Web resources in Spanish, Hmong, Somali, and English. In addition to these tools, there will be direct outreach to these communities at events, other gatherings, and through ELL (English Language Learners) classes throughout the state.

"Research shows that immigrant women are one of the least likely groups to receive mammograms." said Lillian McDonald, executive director, ECHO. "We're honored to work with Susan G. Komen for the Cure® to help these populations learn about breast cancer prevention and treatment."

Production of materials will begin in June, with the television broadcast and additional resources released in October (DVD available soon after). The ELL program will be launched this fall and community outreach activities will continue through April 2011.

The outcome of this program will be that Latino, Hmong, Somali and low-literacy women in Minnesota will be more knowledgeable about breast cancer prevention, detection and treatment and will ultimately have increased rates of screening for breast cancer. Health care providers and public health professionals will also be impacted, as they increase their knowledge of how to best reach low English proficiency communities.