AMIGAS stands for *Ayudando a las Mujeres con Información, Guía y Amor para
su Salud* — **"Helping Women With Information, Guidance, and Love for Their
Health."** It is also the Spanish word for friends, which is the point.
The gap it exists for
**Latinas are less likely to be screened for cervical cancer than non-Hispanic
white women in the United States**, and **have higher rates of developing and
dying from it.**
Those two facts are connected in a way that makes cervical cancer unusual
among cancers: it is one of the few where screening does not merely find the
disease earlier but prevents it, by finding changes before they become
cancer. A screening gap therefore becomes a mortality gap almost directly.
Who it is actually aimed at
Not patients — community health workers and other lay health educators, so
that they can reach **Latinas aged 21 to 65 who have rarely or never been
screened.**
"Rarely or never" is the specific target, and it is the hardest group to
reach. Women who are screened irregularly can be caught by a reminder system.
Women who have never been screened are not in one.
The programme is bilingual and proven effective — which for a health
promotion programme means it has been evaluated, not merely produced.
What it helps women understand
- A Pap test can find changes in the cervix before they turn into cancer
- A Pap test can find cervical cancer early, when treatment works best
- An HPV test looks for the virus that can cause the cell changes that lead
to cervical cancer - The current screening recommendations
- Where and how to get screened
The first and last are the two that matter most in practice. The first because
a woman who believes a Pap test looks for cancer she might already have is
being offered bad news; one who understands it prevents cancer is being offered
something else entirely. The last because knowing you should be screened and
knowing where to go are different pieces of knowledge, and only one of them
gets you through a door.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
ライセンス： CC0 1.0（パブリックドメイン） · 出典 www.cdc.gov
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