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Simple Reminders Motivate Highest Risk Group to Seek Mammograms
Van Harrison |
More than half of all women over 65 — the age group at highest risk for
breast cancer — aren’t getting regular mammograms.
“Older women use their age as a reason to stop getting
mammograms, but we know that their risk of breast cancer — and
the effectiveness of mammography in identifying it early — rises
with age,” says R. Van Harrison,
Ph.D., an associate professor in the Medical School’s Department of
Medical Education and director of Continuing Medical Education, who directed
the research. “We need interventions that will
motivate women over 65 to get this important screening test.”
U-M researchers conducted a controlled study to test whether a carefully designed
personalized mailing would increase mammogram use by women over age 65 who
had not had a mammogram in the previous five years. Their study showed that
women who received the mailing were 60 percent more likely to get a mammogram
than those who did not.
Awareness campaigns should try to dispel the perception that older women don’t
need mammograms, Harrison adds, and should emphasize the increased risk of
breast cancer and the value of mammograms to older women. Specific interventions,
they added, should target women whose Medicare files show no recent mammograms.
In addition to Harrison, authors of the study include Laurence McMahon Jr.,
M.D., professor of internal medicine and professor in the U-M School of Public
Health; Nancy Janz, Ph.D., an associate professor in the School of Public Health;
Jeoffrey Stross (M.D. 1967, Residency 1973), professor of internal medicine;
Michael Chernew, Ph.D., associate professor of internal medicine and an associate
professor in the School of Public Health; Robert Wolfe, Ph.D., and Philip Tedeschi,
Ph.D., both professors in the School of Public Health; and Xuelin Huang, Ph.D.,
who is now at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
—KG
For an expanded version of this story:
www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2003/mammogram.htm
 
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