August 12, 2007

Nearly 2,000 have joined the Deep South Network's Community Action Plan as volunteers and participants to work on reducing personal and community-wide cancer risks. Ten-person walk teams have been established, each with a team leader, to provide motivation, help absorb healthy lifestyle choices and to chart team progress over the next two years. The Deep South Network is as a community based and federally funded partnership of UAB's Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Minority Health and Research Center, the University of Alabama and the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.

Among the walk team leaders at Monday's event will be Dorothy Chatmon, a registered nurse who lives and works in Selma. Chatmon lost her stepmother to colon cancer in 1990, and she has a cousin who is a colon-cancer survivor. Chatmon said she joined the Deep South Network more three years ago because, as she puts it, "people need to know about being tested for cancer early, and they need to know about dietary intake and exercise."

Research shows the cancer death rate is higher for African Americans than other racial and ethnic groups living in the South. The Deep South Network for Cancer Control is working to gather data and field test ideas for eliminating cancer disparity. The program is ongoing in 22 counties in Alabama's Black Belt and the Mississippi Delta.