7 May 2010

Breast screening campaign taken to Sikh temple

11:51 am on 7 May 2010

Community campaigners are attempting to increase breast screening among ethnic minorities by taking their message into the country's largest Sikh temple.

Counties Manukau DHB member Colleen Brown says the campaign is trying to fight the low uptake of mammograms by using education and information programmes throughout the community.

She says a female Indian breast screener will talk to women at the temple in Manurewa.

Ms Brown says the campaign is being promoted by wrapping a chemist shop in the pink ribbon of the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation.

She says it is targeting Indian and south-east Asian women, who may have less information on screening and may be concerned about intimate body examinations.