Cervical Cancer Prevention in Rural Honduras
Cervical cancer causes significant morbidity and mortality and does so disproportionately in the developing world. This remains true despite the existence of effective prevention and treatment strategies. Within this context, HHA explores the burden of suffering exacted by cervical cancer on rural Honduran women and makes recommendations for improvement. The Alliance collaborates with local health promoters and health care providers in examining the available prevention strategies and analyzing which are the most appropriate in the setting according to current cervical cancer prevention guidelines and the local means of implementation.
HHA comes at this issue not only from a didactic perspective but also with experience derived from participatory field research. Due to its own research and development of a community-driven women's health education and prevention program in southern Honduras over the past several years, HHA is interested in how the impact of this disease can be reduced, in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Work in the developing world comes with its own set of hurdles, mainly due to the lack of resources. Significant among these hurdles is the frequent dearth of research and good quality data on basic health indicators.