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Muslim Women More Likely to Skip Breast Cancer Screening, But Mosques Can Help
Breast cancer screening with mammography is a controversial issue, but it can uncover a tumor at an early stage when it's easiest to treat. Currently, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends annual mammograms for women between the ages of ...
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Mufti Nazim Khutbah
Padela Khutbah
Shkifah Khutbah
Qualitative Study and Interviews
Fifty Muslim multiethnicity women (40 years old and above) were interviewed (6 focused group) and 19 in individual interviews. We found religious beliefs did informed mammography intention, which includes (1) the perceived religious duty to care for one’s health, (2) religious practices as methods of disease prevention, (3) fatalistic notions about health, and (4) comfort with gender concordant health care.
Quantitative Study and survey
240, 40 years of age or older, were surveyed (72 respondents were Arab, 71 South Asian, 59 African American, and 38 from another ethnicity). We found that positive religious coping and perceived religious discrimination in health settings significantly (negatively) affected mammogram adherence among Muslim women in Chicago.
American Cancer Society mammogram recommendations
Mammogram recommendation for women at average risk or breast cancer
- Women between 40 and 44 have a choice to have a mammography every year.
- Women 45 to 54 should get mammograms every year.
- Women 55 and older can switch to a mammogram every other year, or they can choose to continue yearly mammograms.
3R model
Reframing “switch train tracks”
- Keep the barriers belief intact but change the way one thinks about it so it is consonant with the desired health behavior
- Normalizes the barrier belief
Reprioritize: “show them a better train”
- Introduce a new belief and create higher valence for it than the barrier belief
- Normalization of the barrier belief is optional
Reform: “breakdown the train carriage”
- Negate the barrier belief by demonstrating its faults by appealing to authority structures