I learned how to reduce my risk for breast cancer and heart disease. I know my numbers and the early detection recommendations.
The Women’s Breast & Heart Initiative is a nonprofit outreach organization piloting whole communities toward lifesaving, preventive self-care. Through education and boots-on-the-ground initiatives, we vigorously encourage and support social responsibility, community organization and the good health of all. And it’s not just the individuals and families we serve that benefit from our work.
Established in 2005 with a single goal of providing at-risk women access to early breast cancer detection and proper treatment, WBHI created a unique neighborhood outreach program by meeting the community where it lived – literally – through a door-to-door campaign that increased awareness of breast health and the importance of early detection, as well as provided access to mammograms for women who were uninsured and underserved by the health care system.
Today, the organization continues to provide lifesaving and life-changing services and now meets the community where it works, by bringing the very same high level of care – and addressing not just breast cancer but heart disease, a leading cause of death in both women and men – to its workplaces, virtually, and on college campuses.
Andrea Ivory is a breast cancer survivor and the founder of WBHI. Realizing that early detection and comprehensive care were essential factors in the successful fight against her disease – and knowing that access to both is a privilege not everyone shares – she quickly mobilized after her recovery to establish the organization. In the nearly two decades since, she has worked tirelessly to fulfill its vision of rallying the community together to break down barriers to health care for vulnerable populations.
Disease prevention and early detection are the keys to beating breast cancer and heart disease; WBHI exists to ensure that those at-risk have a fighting chance to do so, both today and tomorrow.
“Throughout my treatment and recovery, I thought more and more about the women losing their lives to breast cancer – a disease that strikes 1 in 8 women – simply because their socioeconomic status prohibited them from accessing the resources that had literally saved my life. What about them?”
Andrea Ivory
