Our Community Need

The Sacramento Valley Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure® was formed in 1997 and currently serves 19 counties. The mission of the Komen Sacramento Valley Affiliate is to save lives and end breast cancer forever by empowering people, ensuring quality care for all, and by energizing science to find the cures.    In fulfilling this promise, Sacramento Valley Affiliate seeks to follow certain philosophies: To be a grassroots organization To be responsive to the needs of the communities we serve To be non-duplicative To be collaborative To be accountable to our donors The Affiliate's community profile (also known as a community needs assessment) plays an integral part in applying these philosophies to the organization's presence and work in the Affiliate's service area.

Every other year, the Affiliate conducts a community assessment within our 19 county service area called a Community Profile. The goal of the community profile is to gather information for the purpose of identifying gaps in services that must be reduced to improve breast health among members of the community and to better understand the state of breast health and breast cancer care services within our service area. These assessments are designed to critically measure progress against breast cancer in the region while also assessing the performance and opportunities for the Affiliate in its regional programming.

The community profile provides direction for the work of our Affiliate: it establishes the need for fundraising, a target for community education programs, priorities for funding grants and a guide for decision-making and strategic planning.

A community profile is a snapshot, or a picture, of the community, specifically looking at breast health and breast cancer. The profile includes:

• Demographics, such as population by age, race, ethnicity, education and income levels
• Breast cancer statistics, such as screening, incidence and mortality rates
• An assessment of current services for breast cancer screening and treatment in our service area
• A survey of the community's beliefs and attitudes about breast cancer through interviews with key informants

Download the 2011 Community Assessment