Outreach Core

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Summary: Outreach is a core activity of the U54, and the UMass Boston – DF/HCC Partnership Outreach Core proposes an innovative approach to these efforts. The Core will focus on building relationships with outside partners, promoting evidence-based health promotion activities, training students in community-based and community-engaged research, supporting U54 research projects, and participating in NCI National Outreach Network (NON) activities. In the previous project period, our U54 Partnership built a strong track record in promoting evidence-based and evidence-informed interventions in Black and Latino churches and parishes, training underrepresented minority (URM) students in research, disseminating the NCI NON biobanking/ biospecimens education program, and advising U54 researchers on recruitment and retention, and outreach research project planning. The goal is to expand on this strong foundation to broaden the range of community organizations that can benefit from the resources and expertise of the UMass Boston-DF/HCC Partnership. The Outreach Core will take a participatory approach to engage local and regional community- based organizations engaged in cancer prevention, particularly among underserved communities. The Core will build capacity in these organizations to use existing evidence, a hallmark of dissemination and implementation science. This approach responds to: a) the recommendation of our Program Steering Committee to include a dissemination and implementation focus for the renewal application, b) the emphasis in the FOA on supporting the delivery of health promotion activities and engaging community organizations, c) developments in the study of cancer disparities that increasingly emphasize evidence-based approaches to accelerate the translation of knowledge from research to practice settings, and d) calls from the NIH to integrate research, capacity-building, and outreach to address disparities. The activities of the Outreach Core will focus on two partner communities: the Greater Boston area and Lawrence, MA, leveraging the team's strong relationships in these areas. Key partners representing community organizations will be engaged in Boston and Lawrence through a Community Advisory Board (Specific Aim 1); and a needs assessment will be conducted to identify interest in and capacity for cancer control, emphasizing addressing cancer disparities (Specific Aim 2). The Outreach Core will build capacity among: a) community organizations to engage in evidence-based cancer control programming (Specific Aim 3A) and b) URM students to conduct outreach and community-based research for cancer prevention (Specific Aim 3B). Finally, the Core will support the dissemination of research findings from the U54 Partnership to local organizations and communities (Specific Aim 4). By building connections between academia and community partners and also by building capacity among community organizations and students, the Outreach Core will create sustainable infrastructure for cancer control in the region. 1