A multidisciplinary team from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the USC School of Cinematic Arts produced a short film, “The Tamale Lesson,” and demonstrated the power of narrative storytelling to educate women from various cultural backgrounds about cervical cancer. Compared to the more traditional method of non-narrative health communication, the film led to a significant increase in cervical cancer screenings in the Mexican American and Korean women who viewed it. Thus, the narrative approach to communication helped to reduce the disparities in cancer screening that were found at baseline. The film received the Amer­ican Public Health Association’s 2013 award for Health Education and Health Promotion and was a winner in the NIH Common Fund 10-Year Commemoration Video Contest.

The SC CTSI supported the production of a Spanish-language version of the film to help the research team reach more women and address additional health disparities. A total of 1,500 DVDs with both English and Spanish versions of the film were distributed to local women. The study team further received additional funding from the National Cancer Institute to continue studying the approach. Lourdes Baezconde- Garbanati, PhD, MPH, associate professor of preventive medicine, Keck School of Medicine of USC, and Sheila Murphy, PhD, professor, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, are spearheading the project.