New Haven libraries to help promote disease prevention

April is Esophageal Cancer Awareness Month

When Connecticut residents visit their local library this month, many will have the opportunity to learn about how to prevent one of the nation’s fastest increasing and deadliest cancer diagnoses.

All five libraries in the New Haven System (Fair Haven, Ives, Mitchell, Stetson and Wilson) and seven others (Bloomfield, East Granby, Bolton, Colchester, Durham, Middletown and Monroe) will team with ECAN, the Esophageal Cancer Action Network, to spread the word about the disease, which takes the life of an American every 36 minutes.

Diagnosis of esophageal cancer is up more than 400 percent in the past 20 years, and the type of esophageal cancer increasing so rapidly in the United States is usually caused by reflux disease, often thought of as heartburn.

“We know that one of our best tools in fighting this preventable disease is awareness because so many people don’t know that heartburn can cause cancer,” said ECAN President and CEO Mindy Mintz Mordecai, who founded the national non-profit organization after losing her husband and the father of their two young daughters to the disease in 2008. “ECAN is thrilled to deliver this life-saving message in Connecticut communities with the support of the libraries.” 

Throughout Esophageal Cancer Awareness Month, the 12 library branches will distribute special bookmarks made possible through a grant from Covidien. 
The bookmarks share the key risk factors for developing esophageal cancer and a QR code for ECAN’s free downloadable Guide for Patients, which was developed with input from leading doctors across the nation. 

Special event

In conjunction with the New Haven Free Public Library, ECAN will host, “Heartburn Can Cause Cancer: Get the Facts,” at The Ives Main Branch (133 Elm St.), from 6-7:30 p.m. April 10.

Generoso

Designed to help members of the community effectively advocate for their own healthcare, this free health awareness event will feature a seminar and discussion with Dr. Ramon Generoso, an assistant clinical professor at the Yale University School of Medicine and chief of gastroenterology at Milford Hospital.

Generoso will explain the link between reflux disease, Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal cancer. Because there are no medical guidelines regarding screening for this deadly disease, he also will discuss how to know if you have reflux disease and how to prevent and detect esophageal cancer.

For more information about this event, esophageal cancer or ECAN, visit www.ecan.org.

About ECAN

ECAN’s mission is to save lives by increasing awareness about the link between heartburn and cancer, promoting early detection and supporting medical innovation to prevent, detect and treat esophageal cancer. 
The Baltimore-based national non-profit organization is led by a board of directors of top physicians, business leaders and families that have been touched by esophageal cancer.

Through ECAN’s efforts, April has been formally designated as Esophageal Cancer Awareness Month in most U.S. states. ECAN also published the Guide for Patients and successfully advocated with the National Cancer Institute to include esophageal cancer in its groundbreaking genome mapping project known as The Cancer Genome Atlas. 

For more information, visit www.ecan.org.


This post is taken from a press release.