Community Participation in Breast Cancer Prevention Programs Towards Building Sustainable Programs : Involvement or Participation?

For future sustainable breast cancer prevention programs implementation, broad participation in prevention programs is necessary. In the context of developing strategies for health promotion, community participation is most relevant. Literatures also suggested that community involvement is essential for the successful promotion of health. This paper examines the levels of women's participation in breast cancer prevention programs. Community participation and community involvement are occasionally presumed to go hand in hand, but these two prominent concepts has potential difference. At times, the problem is that involvement does not mean participation. The study was conducted among 35-69 years old women who had mammogram in the last two years at 4 obstetric and gynecologic clinics in Tehran. A multistage cluster random sampling procedure and face-to-face interviewing method was used in the data collection process. Results from this study showed that the higher levels of participation (implementation monitoring, evaluation and planning), as mostly through health care professionals. Women's participation in breast cancer prevention programs is limited and it was just carried out at level1 (health benefits) and level 2 (activities). Although women were only involved at some health programs, they have no participation in decision making level. Nevertheless, the continuation of their involvement with commitment to the programs represents sustainability in community-based health programs