The Cancer Program recognized its hardworking Waab Community Health Center (WCHC) Community Health Workers (CHW’s)

Wednesday, April 08, 2026, /// DYCA PIO

Yap FM - This past Monday, April 6th, the Yap Comprehensive Cancer Control Program posted an article recognizing its hardworking Waab Community Health Center (WCHC) Community Health Workers (CHWs) for their continued efforts to provide cervical screening for women in Yap.

Over the last couple of years, while undergoing face-to-face and online training to build up their knowledge and capacity, and providing them with the tools to offer screening to women, they have managed to screen many women in the community and at the CHC sites.

Currently, all the WCHC sites in Yap, Public Health, and the FYRE Clinic offer the HPV test for pre-cervical cancer screening for free to women to take their own samples, which are then tested onsite at each CHC site lab and in the Yap Lab. A woman does not have to wait weeks to get her result back; her result is ready within a couple of hours. Yap health services in this area of women’s health screening have come a long way from the traditional pap smear method to the visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) method to now the new gold standard of cervical screening – the HPV primary test. This process did not come about overnight. It has been years in the making with many stakeholders.

When any health program plans to offer a new screening, a lot of planning, preparation, training, and tailored capacity building have to take place for the policy, systems, and environment to be in place to offer and sustain a new screening that saves lives.

This is not possible without the collaboration of all the partner programs embracing our collective vision of making Yap the first island in the world to achieve the WHO Global Strategy for Elimination of Cervical Cancer target by 2030.

This health screening project was made possible through the University of Hawaii Pacific Against Cervical Cancer (PACe) project, supported by the Pacific Island Health Officers Association (PIHOA).

(For more information, please contact the Department of Health Services at 350-2110)