OU undergraduate Tabitha Zakar publishes in the Journal of Cancer Education

In order to implement successful measures to prevent cancer, people must understand cancer. Often immigrants in particular don’t have the information they need to fight this dreadful disease. Assistant Professor Florence Dallo, of the School of Health Sciences, has studied this problem, and recently published a paper titled “Cancer Knowledge Increases After a Brief Intervention Among Arab Americans in Michigan” in the March 2011 issue of the Journal of Cancer Education. The second author was Tabitha Zakar, a 2010-2011 recipient of a University Research Committee Undergradute Student Research Award, and a presenter at the undergraduate conference Meeting of Minds. The study intervention focused on improving knowledge of cancer risk and explaining cancer prevention and risk reduction strategies. The paper concludes that

“the objectives of this study were to evaluate whether a brief cancer intervention improved cancer knowledge among Arab Americans and to examine which factors were associated with increased cancer knowledge. We found that the intervention increased cancer knowledge and the variables most associated with this improvement were having low education, being unemployed, having lived in the US for 0–5 years, older age, not having insurance, and not exercising….

Educational interventions are one of the many ways to help alleviate diseases, such as cancer, among an immigrant, minority population. Arab Americans are no exception. While our study assessed whether cancer knowledge can be improved, future studies should examine whether cancer screening actually increases after an educational intervention. Our study showed that these interventions may be more effective if tailored to the participant’s educational, employment, duration in the USA, and health behavior status.”