IF YOU GO:
What: Cervical Cancer Awareness Booth
Where: Schine Student Center Atrium
When: noon-2 p.m.
Though a new vaccine was released to prevent the spread of human papillomavirus (HPV), a disease that leads to cervical cancer, many women and men remain unaware of the virus' prevalence. January is Cervical Health Awareness Month, and Syracuse University organization Healthy Monday will join with SU Health Services and Grace's - a local support organization - to present a Cervical Cancer Awareness Booth today in the Schine Student Center Atrium. The goal is to promote awareness and prevention of the disease, which kills more than 300,000 women per year worldwide. The booth will feature a variety of information from the American Cancer Society, the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation and the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, as well as first-hand perspectives from two cervical cancer survivors. The Daily Orange spoke to Healthy Monday program manager Rebecca Langford about the project:
The Daily Orange: Was there any contact with the American Cancer Society prior to this arrangement? Or was the project self-developed?
Rebecca Langford: We actually don't have any contact with them. We have contact through our local support group, Grace's, which is a community organization that offers support to women in Central New York who are affected by gynecologic cancers, such as cervical cancer. They are our main point of contact, and they are actually partners of the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, which is connected to the American Cancer Society - one of our sources for literature. So we had no contact on the national level, but rather with a local organization.
DO: Is the goal of the booth more along the lines of prevention or toward general inspiration and motivation of others in fighting the disease?
RL: I would say it's a combination of both. You have Grace's involved, which does primarily support group work, so that has to do with people who have already had the cancer, who are survivors. But also, a big part of what they want to do and consequently, what we want to do is to increase awareness in the local community and especially on the SU campus, obviously. I think cervical cancer has had a little more information in the media about it since the HPV vaccine Gardasil came out a little more than a year ago. So it seems to be sort of a "hot topic" right now because there is a lot of confusion about cervical cancer.
DO: What sorts of steps can be taken to prevent the disease?
RL: There is definitely the HPV vaccine. The idea is that HPV, if contracted, will possibly lead to cervical cancer. It's a small chance, but the fact that there is a vaccine to prevent it, with minimal side effects makes that a good place to start.
DO: What is the most important thing someone visiting the booth could take away from it?
RL: The booth is not the most structured thing in the world, so reactions will just have to happen naturally, but I'm hoping that, if anything, some of the students on campus will take some literature or find the conversations enlightening. There is only so much you can do with a small block of time in Schine, so there aren't huge expectations, but it's good to start somewhere, even if it's just cancer survivors being there if anyone should have any questions.
DO: And finally, are there any future activities, benefits or information sessions planned by Healthy Monday to look for?
RL: Yes, this will be just one of many to happen this semester. We will have students running the booth every Monday, usually two or three students from a health and wellness class in the College of Human Ecology at SU spreading awareness of a topic that they have a special interest in, such as sex education or breast cancer awareness - all kinds of different things. There are a whole lot of things that we do, and we just try to make it about what the campus wants - we want to make that a reality.
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