Schuyler County Public Health Fellows Ella James and Nina Sun presented at the 2023 New York State Public Health Corps Summit in Albany last month. The fellows presented their work on a project about cancer screening paid leave policies among Schuyler County employers.
“This was a great project that Ella and Nina worked on,” shared Schuyler County Public Health Director Jill Kasprzyk. “Cancer is the number one cause of death for members of our community and early detection plays a crucial role in improving treatment outcomes,” she continued. “Studies show that when employees do not have access to paid time off for cancer screening, they are less likely to get recommended, life-saving cancer screenings done,” Kasprzyk shared.
For the project, James and Sun reached out to various employers in Schuyler County to determine whether they currently had a cancer screening paid leave policy in place and if they did not were they interested in learning more. They found that only 5 of the worksites they reached out to had cancer screening paid leave policies in place. Seven of the worksites without policies expressed interest in learning more about them. Since the start of this project, three worksites have fully adopted a new cancer screening paid leave policy, expanding access to cancer screening paid leave to 52 local employees.
Schuyler County employers wanting to learn more about cancer screening paid leave policies can reach out to Schuyler County Public Health by calling 607-535-8140.
