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2022 Report

A critical aspect of delivering health care to folks experiencing homelessness is finding gaps. Often, people experiencing homelessness go without any kind of medical care for long periods of time. The issues inherent in these situations are exacerbated by misinformation and misunderstandings about health care such as screenings that can detect specific health situations that need to be addressed.

This is why, in October of 2022, Care For the Homeless (CFH) proposed a project to increase patient engagement in colorectal cancer screenings. Specifically, those patients aged 50 and over. The project was funded by The Heidi Paoli Fund of the New York Community Trust. We are grateful for the support that made this special initiative possible. 

The Need

At CFH, we pay close attention to the health status of our patients and consistently evaluate their health using data. Our data showed us that only 4.97% of eligible patients would participate in colorectal cancer screenings. To increase engagement, we revisited an outreach strategy that has worked well in the past. However, to ensure that we could deploy the strategy again, we needed someone pretty special and up to the task to make this their sole responsibility.

That’s how we met Hawa.

Enter Hawa

We first met Hawa Sacko through the CHCANYS Public Health AmeriCorps program. This organization is committed to developing a pipeline to public and community health careers and higher education. CHCANYS Public Health AmeriCorps members receive extensive professional development, training opportunities, and wide exposure to careers in public health and medicine.

Hawa applied to the AmeriCorps program, and we were very impressed with her. She joined us in March as a Health Care Preventive Advisor. During her time, she conducted outreach, explaining to patients how they could benefit from screenings. Additionally, she instructed patients on how to use the FIT kit (an at-home/in-private component of the screening) and coordinated all follow-up appointments when necessary.

“Since I was a little kid, seeing my mom and grandmother always help others motivated me to do the same,” Hawa commented. “In high school, I worked internships at shelters. And since I started at CFH, everyone has treated me like I’ve been here the whole time. My co-workers are all so helpful and I am grateful to be a part of the team.”

Hawa’s Impact

As a result of this project and Hawa’s efforts, colorectal cancer screening engagement increased to 16% over a 6-month period. This is a significant improvement on our previous rate as well as surpassing the goal we set at the project’s beginning; 10%.

We are incredibly grateful to Hawa and all others who made this project a success. And it’s not just a success—it has very likely saved lives.

If you would like to learn more about Hawa and her work, click below to watch a brief interview with her.