“A Community Effort: Local programs within Native American communities are at the forefront of an effort to increase cancer screening and reduce cancer deaths. From 1990 to 2009, overall cancer incidence and mortality decreased for every racial and ethnic group except Native Americans. This article describes some of the community-based cancer education programs developed to increase cancer screening and early detection among Native Americans. The article explores the work of patient navigators and health educators affiliated with two Native American cancer organizations, the Minnesota-based American Indian Cancer Foundation and the Colorado-based Native American Cancer Research Corporation.It also discusses a partnership between researchers at the University of Oklahoma and the Comanche Nation to train patient navigators and and develop Comanche-specific education programs. The article includes two sidebars. The first, “Health Care for Native Americans,” explains the health services Native Americans can access through the federal Indian Health Service program and Contract Health Services. The second, “Cancer Among Native Americans,” includes findings from a series of articles published in June 2014 in the American Journal of Public Health that provide the best information to date on cancer incidence and mortality rates among Native Americans.”
