Roswell Park highlights new mammography videos tailored for Spanish-speaking women

One of the most effective ways to share important information with people is to meet them where they are.

For Jomary Colón, Community Outreach and Engagement Manager with Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Esperanza y Vida (Hope and Life) program, that means making videos about what to expect during mammograms, starring people from the Western New York community – and filming with people who speak Spanish.

Roswell Park has long provided basic mammography information videos on its website, but they are in English with Spanish dubbed in with Colón’s voice. When she was approached by the hospital’s Patient Education department about doing something different, it was the start of something exciting. 

“After we finished the voice-over in Spanish, I thought, let’s bring them to the community. We always want to ask questions and get their opinion about how they like the videos,” she says. “They said they would prefer to see people like them in the videos, people that speak Spanish, people who come from the community, people that look like them.” 

But instead of re-creating the same type of videos already available on the website, Colón wanted to make Spanish-language videos, with English subtitles, that would help women better understand what to expect when they come in for a mammogram. “It would be a way to dispel some of the fear and anxiety that might come along with an appointment and to explain that, no, it’s not going to hurt, but you will feel pressure during mammograms,” she says. 

Demystifying mammograms 

The new videos are a little different in that they show what to expect during the whole mammography procedure and are something that patient navigators can send out in a QR code or a text message or post online. The first video can be watched here. 

Thanks to a grant from Univera, the first of a three-video series has been completed, with three Spanish-speaking community members going through the process of getting a mammogram in the Breast Clinic at Roswell Park. The second video will go through the steps of getting an ultrasound mammogram and the third will walk through what to expect during an ultrasound-guided biopsy. All three will be released by the end of 2025. 

Colón selected these topics because they represent the most commonly performed breast cancer screening procedures for women, and she wanted to make them more accessible to the Spanish-speaking community. In the future, she’d like to secure additional grant funding to produce similar “what to expect” videos for other types of cancer screenings, including colorectal, prostate and lung. 

The importance of accessibility

In addition to helping dispel the fear of getting a mammogram, Colón hopes these Spanish-language videos will help cut down on the number of people who don’t come to their appointments during Esperanza y Vida’s community monthly screening days at Roswell Park. The videos also discuss the importance of an ultrasound mammogram and why a biopsy might be needed, and help to explain that neither of those tests necessarily means you have cancer.  

Colón features women from the Hispanic community in the videos, who some people might recognize as neighbors or friends, will go a long way toward addressing fears of coming in for a mammography. 

“We hope (women) won’t be scared to come in and get their screening, that they won’t have that fear of coming in because they already know what’s going to happen,” she says. “They’ll know everything to expect from the time they arrive and put their clothes in the locker through the whole process.” 

More information on Esperanza y Vida and other Community Outreach & Engagement programs and services can be found here or by calling Jomary Colon at 716-845-4623 or by emailing Jomary.Colon@RoswellPark.org.