Cancer strikes so many Americans that you undoubtedly know a friend or family member who has been affected by the disease. In fact, about 20,000 women in the United States get ovarian cancer every year, and about 237,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in women annually. To help women better understand their risk for certain cancers, a Chicago-based non-profit has created an online risk assessment tool, and it was just awarded some funding and the ability to expand via a pilot program.
Bright Pink, a Chicago-based women’s health non-profit, won first place and a pilot with Blue Cross Blue Shield in the Health Equity Innovation Challenge pitch contest at MATTER, taking home $15,000. The funding and pilot will allow Bright Pink to connect with Blue Cross Blue Shield Illinois members, said Bright Pink CEO Katie Thiede.
“We’re looking forward to the opportunity to pilot Blue Cross Blue Shield Illinois Bright Pink’s signature Assess Your Risk experience,” Thiede said. “One of the things that we hope to achieve is greater scale, and in particular a greater scale with a population that Blue Cross Blue Shield Illinois can help us reach.”
Bright Pink has created an online risk assessment quiz that pinpoints women’s breast and ovarian cancer risk. It also offers a monthly mobile text messaging program to let women know when it's time for an exam or check up, and it connects women with a digital genetics testing service to help women know even more about their breast cancer and ovarian cancer risks.
By creating a text messaging tool, rather than a smartphone app, Bright Pink is able to reach a wider group of users.
“We know a large portion of the population now have smartphones, but SMS [text messages] allows us to reach everyone,” said Bright Pink’s vice president of brand & experience Carli Feinstein.
The organization has reached more than 1 million women through its online risk assessment tool, more than 300,000 of which were informed that they had an increased cancer risk.
Founded in 2007, the non-profit started after its founder, Lindsay Avner, was, at the time, the youngest woman to undergo a double mastectomy at age 23. Avner lost her great-grandmother and grandmother to breast cancer before she was born and witnessed her mother’s battle with ovarian and breast cancer.
Thiede, who became CEO in 2017, also lost family to cancer; for her, it was her aunt who succumbed to breast cancer at 35 and another aunt who was diagnosed with colon cancer 10 years later.
“In that 10-year timeframe between my first aunt passing away when and her sister was diagnosed, my family never talked about how their cancer diagnoses would affect the risk factors of the younger women in our family,” Thiede said. “It really was a journey for me [when it came to] understanding my own risk. And it wasn’t until I met Bright Pink where I felt like I had the tools and the resources and the knowledge I need to take control of my breast and ovarian health.”
The organization also reminds about 30,000 women monthly via text message to check in with their breast health through self examinations and sends them other breast health awareness information, Thiede said. Going forward, the non-profit wants to personalize its text message program based on each woman’s risk level.
Bright Pink doesn't have any plans to roll out an app of its own, but Thiede said it could work closer with other health apps in the future.
“An app usually requires daily or weekly engagement and so we’ve partnered with some other organizations and potentially see some app integration into other health apps,” Thiede said. “We like being able to engage with women on a larger social channel, so that we’re able to intersect in the other areas of their life.”
