Researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the New York City-based Cook for Your Life initiative created a program aimed at improving the health of Latina women with breast cancer.

¡Cocinar Para Su Salud! works to educate Latinas about the important dietary changes that are needed after a breast cancer diagnosis.

The ¡Cocinar Para Su Salud! program took place in Hispanic communities across New York City, Voxxi reports. Latinas in various stages of breast cancer participated in the initiative, which provided nutrition roundtables, food shopping field trips and cooking classes aimed at increasing the number of fruit and vegetable servings for the women.

Overall, the women in the program increased their fruit and vegetable servings to 6.8 per day.

"Many of the women who took part in the study are first-generation immigrants from Spanish-speaking Latin American countries who live in disadvantaged communities and do not have a lot of extra income to spend on food," said Heather Greenlee, ND, PhD, assistant professor of Epidemiology, who led the study at Columbia.

More than half of the women in the study reported participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and had annual household incomes of less than $15,000.

"Our findings are both noteworthy and encouraging, given the lack of previous studies evaluating dietary behavior change among Latina breast cancer survivors and the relatively high cancer mortality among this population," Ann Ogden Gaffney, president and founder of Cook For Your Life, added.

Fruits and vegetables have been found to be a crucial staple in the diet of women with breast cancer as research has shown decreases in the risk of the disease. Meanwhile, for survivors of breast cancer, healthy eating is necessary to boost their immune system.

Despite the American Cancer Society's recommendation of five to nine servings a day of fruits and vegetables for breast cancer survivors, only 18 percent of all women with breast cancer adhere to the recommendation. This number is even lower for women with lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Studies have shown that Latinas and other minority women tend to receive breast cancer screenings less than non-Hispanic white women due to socioeconomic and cultural barriers. Latinas also tend to be diagnosed at a younger age and with more advanced forms of the disease.

Of the current estimated 12 million cancer survivors in the United States, approximately 5 percent are Hispanic.