Mobile mammography screenings coming to Crownpoint, other Navajo Nation communities

Women in Crownpoint and other Navajo Nation communities will have a mobile mammography option this month, with the unit scheduled to stop in Crownpoint, New Mexico, on May 28 and appointments required. For families in McKinley County, the service matters because it brings preventive care closer to home for women who might otherwise delay a mammogram because of distance, transportation or insurance barriers.

The screenings are part of the Navajo Nation Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention Program, a public health effort established in 1996 to improve early detection and prevention for low-income, uninsured and underinsured women on the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Department of Health says the broader cancer prevention program is meant to reduce breast and cervical cancers by working with communities and partners to improve health outcomes, a mission that fits a region where many residents live far from major medical centers.

This push also lines up with National Women’s Health Week, observed May 10-16 this year under the theme, “Prevention, Innovation, and Impact: A New Era in Women’s Health.” The timing gives the mobile screenings added urgency: breast cancer outcomes improve when disease is found earlier, before treatment options narrow and care becomes more complicated for patients and their families.

The need for mobile services is underscored by the geography of the Navajo Nation and by earlier outreach results. The Navajo Department of Health manages 14 programs that reach more than 300,000 people across the Nation, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has documented that attendance at Navajo mobile mammography events rose from 20 women at a 2017 event to an average of about 39 women at two events in 2019. CDC also said bilingual staff in To’Hajiilee became a primary source for cancer education, showing that outreach works best when it meets people where they are, in their own language and community.

The Crownpoint stop carries particular weight in McKinley County. The Crownpoint Health Care Facility serves about 20,000 Navajo people and operates a 20-bed hospital, a reminder of how modest the local health care infrastructure is compared with the population it serves. The Navajo Nation Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention Program also lists New Mexico service sites at Canoncito Health Center, Crownpoint Healthcare Facility, Pine Hill Health Center and Alamo Navajo Health Center, extending the network of screening access across the region.

For women who have put off screening because of travel costs, work schedules or the difficulty of finding a ride, the mobile mammography unit offers a direct path to care. In a county where many communities are separated by long distances and limited transportation options, that can mean the difference between catching cancer early and finding it too late.