Centers of Excellence in Cancer Communications Research

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Revised Abstract: The ultimate goal of this CECCR is to enhance the effectiveness of cancer communication among African Americans. Our proposed research will help identify strategies for integrating cancer communication within the cultural norms, values, and beliefs of various groups of African Americans, evaluate the effects of these strategies, and explain the mechanisms through which they influence cancer-related beliefs and practices. The CECCR consists of three major studies, four core components, and a pilot research program. Study 1 will capture on videotape the stories of 80 African American women breast cancer survivors, examine the effectiveness of these stories in promoting mammography in 900 African American women, and test a new explanatory model of narrative cancer communication effects. Experience-based communication through storytelling is deeply rooted in the culture of African American women and promising for cancer communication. Study 2 will conduct the first ever national study of Black newspapers to determine the frequency and nature of their coverage of cancer-related stories, then develop and test a computer-based intervention to enhance cancer coverage in Black newspapers by providing them with community-specific stories and data on cancer. Black newspapers are largely untapped as a channel for cancer communication, but promising because they are read, trusted and valued by African Americans, attentive to issues in the local Black community, and provide information and perspectives that are largely missing from the general media. Study 3 will compare the effectiveness of three different approaches to cultural appropriateness on affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses to a series of colorectal cancer risk reduction magazines. Learning more about these three approaches - peripheral, evidential, and sociocultural - will help develop a theory of cultural cancer communication and assist practitioners in developing more effective programs and materials. Core A provides career development for junior faculty, African American doctoral students, and an interdisciplinary seed grant program. Core B provides content development, graphic design, computer programming, and translation and dissemination services. Core C provides research methods support including formative research, measurement and data collection, and biostatistics and data management. Core D provides scientific leadership, research oversight and evaluation, and administrative and budgetary support. The Pilot Research Program will solicit, identify and support innovative cancer communication research ideas. The center is highly interdisciplinary in its organizational structure, faculty, collaborators, and theme.