Center for Excellence in Rural Health-Hazard

Rural Cancer Project Announces First Community Hog Roast

HAZARD, Ky. (Nov. 4, 2009) − Dr. Baretta R. Casey at the University of Kentucky Center for Excellence in Rural Heath-Hazard was recently awarded a five-year grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The purpose of this funding is to establish the Rural Cancer Prevention Center (RCPC), which will serve residents across the eight-county Kentucky River Area Development District (Breathitt, Knott, Lee, Leslie, Letcher, Owsley, Perry and Wolfe counties). Joined by Richard Crosby and Robin Vanderpool from UK’s College of Public Health, Casey and many others involved in this project have made the prevention and screening of three cancers their personal priority for the next five years.

The first of these is cervical cancer. Casey said there has never been a better time to begin the process of eliminating cervical cancer as a cause of death among women residing in rural Kentucky. The RCPC strategy is to work diligently to promote and provide human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination to all medically eligible women and possibly to men, given the recent Food and Drug Administration’s approval for males between the ages of 9 and 26. The RCPC also plans to promote Pap testing, especially to women who have not been receiving this important form of screening and early detection for cervical cancer.

The RCPC also will aggressively pursue the reduction of breast cancer deaths.

"We will be asking all women age 40 and older to begin having regularly scheduled mammograms as a way of showing their family how much they care about staying healthy and living a long time to watch their children and grandchildren grow up," Casey said.

She also emphasizes the point that early detection of breast cancer often results in minimal treatment and favorable long-term outcomes.

Local residents can also look for the RCPC to aggressively promote colonoscopy among men and women 50 years of age and older. Rural Kentuckians bear an undue burden of death from colon cancer − a statistic that can and must change. In addition to the great advantages of early diagnosis of colon cancer, colonoscopy is a procedure that actually may help prevent the disease by the painless removal of pre-cancerous growths in the colon.

"The technology behind this procedure has never been better," Casey said. "If you are 50 years of age or older you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to take the time to have a colonoscopy."

The RCPC will be housed in the UK Center for Excellence in Rural Health-Hazard, 750 Morton Blvd. The majority of project services will be provided through a broad network of community partners and health care professionals that Casey and others have established in Eastern Kentucky. Casey noted that the first goal of the RCPC is "to let people know what we are doing," and she then described plans to provide a grand opening of the project by inviting community members to attend RCPC-sponsored hog roasts that will be provided in each of the KRADD counties over the course of the next year.

"We will be roasting whole hogs on a hickory fire and providing all the side dishes that go with it," Casey said. The first hog roast will be held on Friday, Nov. 13, in Hyden at the Kentucky Homeplace office, 22728 Hwy. 421, Suite 107. Food will be served from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.