Grammy-winning artist Ciara is 'Cerving Confidence' in Hologic's new cervical cancer awareness effort for Black women

Grammy-winning artist Ciara encourages Black women to take care of themselves from the inside out in Hologic’s new campaign to raise awareness around cervical cancer.

Playing on the phrase “serving looks” meaning looking good, Ciara is “Cerving Confidence” in the campaign created with the Black Women’s Health Imperative. The intent? Prompt Black women to serve looks on themselves, starting on the inside.

“It's more than a manicure, getting our hair done or a new outfit, it’s taking care of our health inside and out. Your health comes first Sis—yes!” Ciara says in the debut video.

Other Black women in the video chime in with additional thoughts such as “Let’s normalize being on top of our stuff” and “If you can go get your hair done, nails done, make up done, you can go get that wellness exam.”

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Ciara is an ideal ambassador for the campaign, thanks to her music, business leadership and frequent messages speaking out to empower women and especially Black women.

“She’s not just ‘a celebrity,’ but a celebrity and a personality who’s relatable,” Linda Blount, CEO of Black Women’s Health Imperative, said. “We talk about the lived experience as a Black woman, Ciara is someone who shares those experiences and talks about it openly and publicly.”

The campaign invites women on social and digital media to participate by uploading a photo and telling how they “cerv confidence.” Ciara will also host an online summit later this summer about the importance of self-care for Black women.

Blount’s hope is that Ciara and the “Cerving Confidence” campaign help advance the better outcomes for Black women that they’ve been working with Hologics on for years. Hologic's recently launched Project Health Equality directly addresses the inequities in women's healthcare for Black and Hispanic women and includes BWHI as a partner.

While racial and socioeconomic inequalities are not new in creating a disproportionate cervical cancer burden for Black women, the pandemic has made the situation worse. Black women, in fact, are twice as likely to die from cervical cancer than white women.

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As Blount notes, there are no biological or genetic determinants between the two, but rather only differences in access to healthcare—screening, early detection and quality care—causing the disparity.

“If this is successful and I think it will be, and we just got even a slight bump in cervical cancer screening, now we’re talking about preventing maybe a thousand cases of cervical cancer over the next couple of years, which is huge,” Blount said.

Hologic is a medical device and diagnostics company primarily focused on women’s health has cervical health products in its portfolio, including a market-leading combined Pap and HPV cervical cancer screening test.