Community programs. Breast cancer detection awareness.

The American Cancer Society initiated a major nationwide program to raise public and health professional awareness about the benefits of breast cancer detection, particularly screening mammography. Activities were carried out at the community level and attempted to develop local collaboration and participation. Barriers to use of screening, including cost, quality assurance, physician attitudes and practices, and women's knowledge, were addressed in communities across the United States. Early indications are that the program has made a major impact, contributing to the recent increase in the number of women who have had mammograms, the number of mammograms done in hospitals, the number of physicians who follow Society Guidelines for Mammography 0 (in Illinois, this rose from 15% in 1985 to 46% in 1987), and in the number of early breast cancers being diagnosed. The challenge remains to more broadly integrate breast cancer detection into health practice. The BCDA provides a valuable example to make this goal a reality.