Date of Conferral

2018

Degree

Doctor of Healthcare Administration, DHA

School

Health Services

Advisor

Jared Yogerst

Abstract

Disparities exist in the health-seeking behavior of African American (AA) women in the United States. Specifically, AA women 40 years and older often do not adhere to guidelines for breast cancer screening because of demographic and socioeconomic factors that have impacted health disparities. The purpose of this study was to research negative health-seeking behavior toward early-stage breast cancer detection in AA women 40 years and older. The main research questions addressed whether there is a relationship between negative health-seeking behavior, operationally defined as lack of a personal doctor, lack of health insurance, and lack of doctor visits within the past 12 months, and early-stage breast cancer detection, operationally defined as lack of mammogram screening within the past 2 years, in AA women 40 years and older. This quantitative study was guided by the health belief model. A cross-sectional design was used along with secondary data from the 2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey. Wald chi-square was used to examine the relationship between the dependent variables and the independent variable. The relationship between lack of a personal doctor, lack of health insurance, lack of doctor visits within the past 12 months, and lack of mammogram screening within the past 2 years was statistically significant at p < .05. The findings based on the significance between the variables confirmed that negative health- seeking behavior affects early-stage breast cancer detection in AA women 40 years and older. The results of this study may inform the development of educational programs that are instrumental in promoting and improving mammogram screening and early-stage breast cancer detection among AA women age 40 years and older.

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