From the Desk of the Principal Investigator...                                                                     Back to Article List

NC-BCSP: A True Example of Teamwork

In 1992, I set out with several researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and from East Carolina University to accomplish a challenging goal: to rigorously evaluate a theory-based community intervention designed to improve breast cancer screening rates and change community norms surrounding breast cancer. Ultimately, we wanted to improve the health of African American women in eastern North Carolina. Ten years later, this goal is only one of the many accomplishments of the North Carolina Breast Cancer Screening Program, which has grown to be much more than a research project.

NC-BCSP originated as a partnership between the communities of eastern North Carolina and the University. Blending the existing strengths of the community with the expertise of University researchers, together we created a lay health advisor program to break the silence around breast cancer. Volunteer lay health advisors, who generously gave their time and energy to help others, provided the womanpower for this effort. These LHAs, strong black women intertwined in their community, found joy and pride in helping others.

Bolstering the LHAs were the Community Outreach Specialists, true champions of our cause. These women identified, recruited, and trained new LHAs and kept existing volunteers motivated and well-supported.

As with any project, we had to overcome administrative obstacles and, at times, retrace our steps; like any volunteers, NC-BCSP advisors faced setbacks and were sometimes discouraged. But none of us ever gave up. Because of this perseverance, NC-BCSP has been transformed, ten years later, from a research project to a community program, embraced by the volunteer LHAs as their own, and assisted by community-based organizations. Overall the program has demonstrated that teamwork makes it possible to create a sustainable community resource. I would like to personally thank all the volunteers and community organizations as well as the many students who learned from, and contributed to, this project. Although I am nostalgic as the "on the ground" research aspect of NC-BCSP comes to a close, I'm excited to see what its second decade, as a service delivery program, will bring to the women "down east" whose program this now becomes.