Myriam Escobar has been so effective at community outreach that she was invited this week to speak at the White House. The community outreach worker from Moffitt Cancer Center runs a program called "Yo me cuido." That means "I take care of myself."
"And I can say, not only on the Hispanic women, the women all around the world, they are always worried about their families, their children, and make everything for them, and they leave them for the last", Escobar said. "The main message of "Yo me cuido" is they have to be FIRST, to be healthy for their families and they can change lives and the lives of their children and their entire family through just preventing."According to the Obama Administration, Escobar's outreach is working, and they'd like to see more of it. That's because prevention is a huge part of the federal health law. Federal health officials say many of America's serious health problems, the types of diseases that cause millions of adults to die prematurely, can be prevented. Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Howard Koh spoke during the White House event.
"We all know that health is much more than what happens to you in a doctor's office", said Koh. "Health starts where people, live, learn, labor, play and pray."
Escobar goes wherever women are in Tampa Bay to bring them information about prevention. At the White House, she described her strategy:
"So we start to make phone calls to them, we send them emails, we send them postcards until we make sure they have their mammograms", said Escobar. "We joke, and we say we are the Tampa police of the mammograms. (laughter) Because we don't stop, we just keep calling and calling."
Escobar's motivation comes from her sister-in-law. She died from breast cancer because she didn't know the symptoms or anything about prevention, or the resources that are out there. The Affordable Care Act includes a long list of preventive services that insurance plans now have to cover without a co-pay. In most cases, that includes a yearly mammogram for women 40 and older. For women who don't have insurance, Escobar works to connect them with services.
"The thing is, they don't know that resources exist", explained Escobar. "So what we do is link them to the resources and have their screenings."
During the White House celebration, Dr. Koh acknowledged prevention can be a tough subject to get excited about.
"We all know that prevention is not as dramatic a field as treatment. Some would say that when prevention works, nothing happens", Koh said.
Escobar agrees with Dr. Koh, but says eventually, something DOES happen:
"Nothing happens in the beginning, at the moment, but in the long term, it happens a lot", said Escobar. "Because people start to realize that having a healthy lifestyle and early screenings works."
And she says something else has started to happen -- women she used to have to call and remind about a mammogram are now starting to call HER when they know they're due for a screening.