California Breast Cancer Plan: Paths to Prevention
Primary Prevention of Breast Cancer
Reducing the societal burden of breast cancer is possible. While it is extremely difficult to link a specific case of breast cancer to a specific risk factor, science has shown us that at a population level, certain exposures and factors can increase or decrease our overall risk for the disease. We have an obligation as a society to take action to reduce the number of people being diagnosed with this disease.
Breast Cancer Prevention Interventions
Californians identified these breast cancer prevention interventions as priority by importance and feasibility.
Paths to Prevention
Paths to Prevention: the California Breast Cancer Primary Prevention Plan (the Plan), combined a review of the peer-reviewed science with the wisdom of communities around California to identify risk and protective factors and develop suggested policy and community actions to reduce breast cancer risk.
While all states have cancer plans, Paths to Prevention is unique in that it focuses specifically on primary prevention—stopping the disease before it starts—and on systemic, rather than individual, actions to reduce breast cancer risk for everyone. We developed the Plan through a social and racial justice lens.
Download the Plan, Executive Summary, Executive Summary Spanish
Primary prevention: Preventing the onset of disease by eliminating or reducing exposures to risk factors. Primary prevention is distinct from early detection.
Systemic change: Addressing societal-level issues, rather than individual behaviors, to reduce breast cancer risk at a population level.
Science Summary
In the U.S., 1 out of every 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. Today, it stands as the world’s leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women. Yet, less than 10% of women diagnosed with breast cancer have a family history of the disease. While genetics plays a role in how we react to other breast cancer risk factors, from exposures to environmental chemicals to the food we eat, there are opportunities to reduce breast cancer risk. We can’t change our genes, but we can modify our environment as individuals and collectively.
BCPP published Paths to Prevention in 2020, encapsulating three years of community participatory research.
We identified 23 risk and protective factors, reviewed thousands of peer-reviewed articles, hosted webinars with research and community experts on specific issues, and held 11 listening sessions with highly impacted communities throughout California.
The resulting document provided scientific summaries, identified research gaps, and offered a menu of policy initiatives and community interventions for the 23 risk and protective factors.
Charting Paths to Prevention
We continued this prevention work through the follow-up project, Charting Paths to Prevention: Building Community Partnerships for Action (Charting P2P). Charting P2P sought to identify policy and community interventions with evidence that they would successfully reduce breast cancer risk and were a priority for highly impacted California communities. Using Paths to Prevention’s 300+ policy intervention suggestions, the goal of Charting P2P was to identify the priorities of stakeholders, including community members, academics, health practitioners, and policy experts.
The project started with a state-wide survey to gather information on potential actions that stakeholders found most important and feasible. We then explored these priorities in 8 regional meetings across California. We introduced the project, educated communities about breast cancer risk factors, and learned from participants about the most critical issues to address in their area and current initiatives in their communities.
The project concluded with a 2-day training on community-partnered participatory research co-hosted with the California Breast Cancer Research Program.
Powering Paths to Prevention
Several projects are underway, led by NGOs, researchers, and community organizations, aimed at planning, implementing, and evaluating intervention projects from Charting Paths to Prevention. We look forward to sharing project highlights in the future.
Contact us to learn about how your work intersects with breast cancer prevention and the risk factors we’ve identified in this project.
Resources
(Coming Soon) Primary Prevention: Why We Do Community Work
BCPP’s Senior Organizing Manager, Nyisha Green-Washington, shares why working with highly impacted communities is vital to primary prevention.
Breast Cancer Risk Factors
Learn about 23 risk factors that we can impact, both directly and indirectly, for positive health outcomes.
Supported by funds provided by the Regents of the University of California, Research Grants Program Office, California Breast Cancer Research Program. The opinions, findings, and conclusions herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those The Regents of the University of California, or any of its programs.
Supported by grant funding from Gilead Sciences, Inc. Gilead Sciences, Inc. has had no input into the development or content of these materials.
Types: Report
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