Joan Peckolick, the founder and director of Selfchec.org, which leverages the power of human relationships to promote health, is one of the many media activists joining our We Media Miami conversation. On a Wednesday afternoon panel chaired by Suzanne Turner of Turner Strategies, Joan will share how social media can not only encourage healthy lifestyles but also help avoid the senseless tragedy of preventable deaths. Today Joan sets out a challenge for the We Media world:

If I told you that each person reading this blog has the power at their fingertips to help save the lives of 350,000 people who will die this year from cancers that are often preventable, treatable and curable, would you believe me? Would you take the time to help me get an important message out about prevention and early detection in the fight against cancer?
I’d bet my life that you would believe me and want to help me after reading this.

In an October, 2007, article headlined “U.S. Cancer Death Rates are Found to be Falling,” New York Times reporter Denise Grady wrote that “the turnaround appears to be mainly a triumph in prevention and early detection rather than dazzling medical cures.”

Ten years ago a potential revolution in communicating the importance of prevention, screening and early detection in the fight against cancers was born. With a plethora of studies demonstrating consistently that people take better care of themselves when they have support from others who care about them, Self chec, our non-profit organization, devised a simple, unique and all-encompassing methodology to get messages out that people can hear and act on.

Self chec has a communications strategy based not only on the printed word but on digital multimedia as well. In the past two years, we have increased the number of unique visitors to the Self chec website by over 300 percent. Thirty-seven percent of those visitors signed up friends and family members for e-mail reminders about when, why and how to keep healthy.

We believe such in-your-face messages about health care self-empowerment can help loved ones change from fearing and denying the threat of cancer to embracing a more pro-active attitude. The Self chec initiative offers not only tools that move people together toward a common goal, but hope for the future, that coming generations will not suffer the pain and loss of this devastating disease.

Our challenge is enormous, and we just can’t do it alone.

Here’s how enormous it is: Unlike the tragedy in Louisiana, in which 1,100 Americans died in a natural disaster, and both public and private organizations came together afterward in an unprecedented way to help, cancer takes loved ones one by one, usually after a long illness, and their death remains anonymous to everyone except family and friends. Imagine if these 1,100 people multiplied by 350 were all taken from us in one day: More than 350,000 Americans die from cancers each year that are often preventable, treatable and curable. Can you imagine the outpouring of support that would take place?

Loss of life that is beyond our control is unimaginably tragic. But loss of life caused by keeping our heads in the sand when we now have the tools to overcome our fears and take better care of ourselves is even more tragic. This is why Self chec was created, and why we need your help in getting this message out.

Here is the challenge I am proposing to you: Think about how your work in digital media could help save the life of a single person. It could be an e-mail campaign or a social networking plan or something yet to be imagined. If you would consider joining us in launching innovative strategies, together we have the potential to save 350,000 lives each and every year.

If you’re up to the challenge, please go to our website to read a little about what we are doing at www.selfchec.org. You can contact me either by posting a comment at this blog or writing to me directly: joan@selfchec.org

I am looking forward to meeting you at the We Media conference in February. Hopefully we can start a dialogue that will bring us together to harness our collective power in support of this important initiative.