Studies show that not all women who should be getting basic examinations such as Pap tests and mammograms do so. Obtain national figures and blend these with local information for a public service story about the necessity for these possibly life-saving checkups.

Here's how Jeff South went about gathering the information. Follow this procedure for more recent figures and blend them with local material:

I started at the Web site for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (http://www.cdc.gov/) —an authoritative source for health information.

At the top of the home page is a "Search" box. To get started, I type certain keywords, such as "mammograms" and "by state":

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The "Search Results" page shows more than 9,600 documents containing those keywords. The third "hit" seems especially relevant – and recent:

<a onClick="window.open('/olcweb/cgi/pluginpop.cgi?it=jpg::::/sites/dl/free/0073511935/535055/Checkup_p2.jpg','popWin', 'width=NaN,height=NaN,resizable,scrollbars');" href="#"><img valign="absmiddle" height="16" width="16" border="0" src="/olcweb/styles/shared/linkicons/image.gif"> (125.0K)</a>

If I open that link, I get this report:

<a onClick="window.open('/olcweb/cgi/pluginpop.cgi?it=jpg::::/sites/dl/free/0073511935/535055/Checkup_p3.jpg','popWin', 'width=NaN,height=NaN,resizable,scrollbars');" href="#"><img valign="absmiddle" height="16" width="16" border="0" src="/olcweb/styles/shared/linkicons/image.gif"> (113.0K)</a>

If I search for "pap smears" "by state", I get a 550-page report that is in the Adobe Acrobat format and is linked to an Excel spreadsheet.

<a onClick="window.open('/olcweb/cgi/pluginpop.cgi?it=jpg::::/sites/dl/free/0073511935/535055/Checkup_p4.jpg','popWin', 'width=NaN,height=NaN,resizable,scrollbars');" href="#"><img valign="absmiddle" height="16" width="16" border="0" src="/olcweb/styles/shared/linkicons/image.gif"> (80.0K)</a>

New Developments

An examination of studies of women who had mammographies showed that it was not effective in preventing deaths from breast cancer, some researchers announced. This set off a debate about whether women should routinely have mammographies. Locate this discussion through a search and include your findings in the story. What is the position of local physicians?