Salud × Cedars-Sinai

Cancer screening reaches Latino communities last

Latino adults in the US are significantly less likely to receive timely cancer screenings — not because of indifference, but because the system was not designed with them in mind. Latinx immigrants are screened at lower rates across every cancer type, and for colorectal cancer specifically, late-stage diagnoses among Latinx adults aged 20–29 have risen from 28% to 41% in under two decades.

Antelope Valley is a semi-rural region northeast of Los Angeles — geographically isolated, underserved by public transit, and home to one of the largest Latinx immigrant populations in Southern California. For many residents, a familiar grocery store is more reachable than a clinic.

Central to the existing outreach infrastructure are community cancer navigators — trained health workers embedded in the community who bridge the gap between residents and clinical institutions. They are trusted precisely because they are neighbors, not authority figures.

Why the system fails at the point of delivery

The problem isn't just that people don't know about screening — it's that every system designed to tell them was built for someone else. Language barriers, distrust of medical institutions, logistical friction, and materials written above a 10th-grade reading level compound into a system that feels inaccessible.

Kiosk interaction flow — from introduction to gift pickup

Community navigators — promotoras — are the most trusted link in the chain. But even they reported that current materials were too difficult to deliver: too much jargon, too abstract, too clinical for a conversation happening in a grocery store aisle.

What we heard, what we learned

Through secondary research, navigator interviews, and community shadowing, four patterns emerged that shaped our design direction.

Mapping the full service experience

We mapped the journey from the moment someone hears about screening to when they leave with a summary ticket — finding where trust breaks down and where a design intervention could meet them.

User journey map — 6 stages from awareness to action

Ralphs — a familiar, trusted community space

A promotora is not a medical professional — she is a trusted community health worker, often a neighbor or familiar face, who has already built relationships with local residents. This existing trust is the foundation the entire service is built on. Our design's job was to support her, not replace her.

Why they go

• Shop for weekly groceries for themselves and their families
• Look for fresh foods and culturally familiar ingredients
• Shop during regular routines — after work, on weekends

What they engage with

• In-store food discounts, giveaways, samples, or demos
• Simple, bilingual health information
• Conversations with promotoras or community health workers

An AI station that guides, not diagnoses

AI Salud Station is a tablet kiosk deployed at Ralphs, introduced by a promotora. Users take a 10-question survey and receive a personalized printed summary — their next gentle step, a key screening fact, and a local Cedars-Sinai resource. No personal data is stored. No diagnosis is made.

Experience walkthrough — prototype demo

Privacy was a core design constraint, not an afterthought. Every decision about what the system collects, says, and outputs was made with the assumption that trust had to be earned in real time.

What we learned by designing in community

The project was presented to Cedars-Sinai's Community Health team in April 2025. The service blueprint and promotora dashboard were received as immediately actionable within their existing outreach infrastructure.

The most important lesson: effective health design requires meeting people in their existing networks of trust, not building new ones. The promotora is not a workaround — she is the system.

A paper summary alone risks being discarded the moment someone leaves the store. The souvenir objects — tote bag, keychain, mirror, cookie — are designed to keep Cedars-Sinai present in daily life. When a family member asks about the bag months later, the conversation about screening starts again. The goal was never immediate action. It was planting a seed.