On Dec. 4, 2025, 15 cancer survivors and caregivers embarked on a journey to become patient leaders through the 2026 Latino Cancer Patient Advocate Training Program. These individuals spanned different backgrounds, cancer types, geographies, genders, and multiple organizations and came together to train as a collective group focused on helping people like them. Over 8 months, they learned how to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing cancer care environment and explored ways to transform lived experience into actionable change. They overcame cancer reoccurrences, ongoing treatment, and personal hardships to make it to the finish line and became full-fledged patient leaders, who are working to elevate their voices among decisionmakers and create new research ...
If you’re 45 or older, it’s time to step up to the plate and get screened for colon cancer. That’s the message in Abbott’s new baseball-themed bilingual ad campaign for the Cologuard Plus® test, an at-home screening tool to detect colorectal cancer. The campaign, “Mind Your Behind,” features baseball legend Albert Pujols, who was born in the Dominican Republic, and current baseball star Cal Raleigh. “Colorectal cancer screening is serious, but we talk about it doesn’t always have to be,” said Jake Orville, Abbott’s Senior Vice President, Cancer Diagnostics. “We want to make screening easier to talk about and, more importantly, easier to act on.”
About the Baseball Campaign for Colon Cancer Screening
The campaign plays it “cheeky” with the idea of ...
Texas has a big opportunity to eliminate cervical cancer. It will take the combined impact of HPV vaccination, routine cervical cancer screening and follow-up, and timely navigation to treatment services, according to the Texas Lone Star Cervical Cancer Elimination Plan 2027-2032. The plan’s three big actions are recommended by the Cervical Cancer Elimination Priority Area Workgroup, supported by the Cancer Alliance of Texas (CAT). The workgroup includes Dr. Rebecca Jones, assistant director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio. “Texas has the tools to prevent nearly all cervical cancers, but elimination will require coordinated statewide action, sustained partnerships, and tailored and targeted strategies,” according to the ...
When Sandi Stanford was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1993, everything was vastly different from how we view, treat, measure, and research the disease today.
Much of that has to do with innovations in medicine, science, and technology.
However, there were far more powerful players steering the ship — survivors.
This new breed of survivors weren’t standing on the sidelines; they were educating themselves, inserting themselves in research, and having conversations that would benefit future generations of survivors.
They called themselves cancer patient advocates.
One such advocate, Sandi Stanford of San Antonio, Texas, helped pioneer programs and initiatives that transformed a cancer diagnosis into action.
Unfortunately, Sandi passed away on Aug. 29, 2026, at age 82.
While the ...
Breast cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer-related death in U.S. women and the leading cause of cancer-related death in Latina women. Despite advancements in preventative care and early detection, Latinas and all women continue to be diagnosed at later stages when treatment is more taxing and outcomes aren’t as optimistic. This situation is a result of issues with non-medical drivers of health, such as low access to health insurance, preventive screenings, transportation, healthy food, and more. More resources, better education, and research can help make a difference! It’s National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and whether you’re a survivor, currently in treatment, health professional, caregiver, family member, or at risk for breast cancer, here are ...
Los latinos enfrentan una carga alta de cáncer. Debido a barreras relacionadas con el idioma, los recursos económicos, el transporte y otros factores, los latinos con frecuencia reciben un diagnóstico de cáncer en etapas avanzadas, cuando las probabilidades de sobrevivir son menores y los costos del tratamiento son más altos. Para abordar el impacto del cáncer en los latinos y brindar esperanza, Salud America! creó la campaña “Nuestras Voces”, una iniciativa que ofrece a los sobrevivientes latinos de cáncer una plataforma para compartir sus historias y experiencias. Como parte de esta campaña, los sobrevivientes de cáncer latinos pueden escribir y enviar sus propias historias para que sean publicadas en nuestro sitio web, en inglés o español. “Cuando ...
A lot of the time a cancer survivor’s story goes: “I felt a lump in my breast, I got it checked out, and it was breast cancer.”
That’s not the story of Deb Blake-Ontiveros.
The single mother visited a doctor after she felt a lump in her breast. But her doctor dismissed it as something else.
Two years passed before Deb was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“If we go back in time ... and I would have been maybe a little bit less distracted with the baby and more like, ‘Hey, I think I would like further screening’ that could have been the change there. But that's the reality, though,” Deb told Salud America!
That reality is that some women with breast cancer, especially young Latinas whose symptoms often go ignored or misdiagnosed, never get to ring the bell.
For Deb, ...
As we celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, Salud America! is having important conversations about how breast cancer trends impact communities and populations in South Texas and beyond. Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in Latinas and top cause of cancer-related death among Latinas. With this in mind, Salud America!’s Salud Talks Podcast collaborated with Dr. Marcela Mazo Canola, breast medical oncologist at the Mays Cancer Center at UT Health San Antonio, and Dr. Angel Rodriguez, senior medical director of oncology for Natera, to discuss new technologies to care for people who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. This episode is hosted by Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San ...
Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in Latinas. Despite advances in prevention and treatment, Latina breast cancer continues to be detected at advanced stages when the prognosis isn’t optimistic. There are several contributing factors to why Latinas face worse outcomes when it comes to breast cancer. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and to honor all who have been impacted by the disease, we are discussing the top eight things to know about Latina breast cancer.
1. Latina Breast Cancer Diagnosis
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among Latinas, impacting U.S. Latinas at a rate of 106.6 per 100,000 people, according to the American Cancer Society’s 2026 Cancer Facts & Figures report. This equates to roughly 1 out ...
