Media Advisory: UB to Co-Sponsor Breast Cancer Screenings and Wellness Event Saturday on Buffalo's East Side

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo will co-sponsor a free breast cancer awareness walk and a wellness event providing free mammograms and health information from health care providers on Saturday, Oct. 13, in Masten Park.

Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. for the 1.6 mile walk in Masten Park, which will begin at 10 a.m. at the Best Street entrance.

The wellness event will begin at 11 a.m. Participants with prescriptions are eligible for free onsite mammograms by calling WNY Breast Health at 1-855-464-7465. Free services are available for the uninsured. Those who cannot be screened on Oct. 13 will be provided with an alternate appointment.

According to UB family medicine professor Laurene Tumiel-Berhalter, providers are committed to making sure that both the walk and the event are free in order to ensure the highest possible participation rate. "This is an event we are holding to educate people on the East Side about breast cancer and to screen them for it."

She notes:

-- Among African-American women, breast cancer is the most common cancer and the second most common cause of death;

-- African-American women have a higher incidence rate of breast cancer before age 40 and are more likely to die from it at every age than are non-Hispanic and white women;

-- While mortality rates decreased for white breast cancer patients from 1975 to 2003, they actually increased for African-American women.

Additional screenings will take place throughout the fall when the WNY Breast Health Mobile Mammography Unit will be stationed in front of UBMD Family Medicine at Jefferson and UBMD Gynecology Obstetrics, 1315 Jefferson Ave. in Buffalo.

The event is being held by the Patient Voices Network, a patient empowerment partnership between the University at Buffalo Department of Family Medicine, and patients from UBMD Family Medicine at Jefferson and Jericho Road Family Practice.

Press arrangements: Ellen Goldbaum at goldbaum@buffalo.edu or 716-645-4605, and Laurene Tumiel-Berhalter, UB professor of family medicine, at 716-868-3578, onsite.