Community Engagement Core

总结

Summary The reasons for increased incidence and mortality due to prostate cancer in African-American men could be due to inherent biological differences and/or socio-economic reasons. Combined strategies based on basic biological research and community outreach programs are required to combat this disease in the African- American community. The Center for Cancer Research and Therapeutic Development (CCRTD) focuses on reducing the burden of prostate cancer disparities through research, outreach, and education. In an effort to provide information on health disparities, which disproportionally affects the African-American population, CCRTD established a Community Outreach/Education Core in 2005 as part of its research efforts. Prostate cancer has a devastating effect on the health of African-American men; consequently it is of great concerns for CCRTD. Since the inception of the Core, CCRTD has served as a bridge to the community and as an advocate for action that promotes prostate health improvement. CCRTD also hosts one of the largest group of basic research scientists in the area of prostate cancer cell and molecular biology. As part of its research activities, CCRTD organizes weekly invited speaker seminars and journal club series and host a biennial national prostate cancer symposium on CAU campus. These venues play a significant role in exchange of scientific information at the local and national level. We will engage our community partners in the day-to-day function of CCRTD and will seek input from community to guide basic research at the Center. The proposed Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) program, Community Engagement and Dissemination (CED) core will combine both strengths of CCRTD and create an infrastructure for development of constant interactions between various communities with the focus on the development of the best practices for the elimination of prostate cancer health disparities. The Core proposes to build upon already established relationships in the community to provide researchers and community members with the recognized need of community engagement in academia, where the value of research evidence and community wisdom will provide effective strategies to address health disparities. This multi-faceted approach will ensure the Center’s meaningful community participation in research, training, and dissemination activities. Recognizing that effective community partnerships are constructed over time through trust, respect, and commitment, the strategies and tasks of the Core will be to foster and support the emergence of community engaged or participatory research relationships. The CCRTD is committed to reducing disparities in cancer burdens among minority population groups and to achieving health equality through its programmatic education and dissemination strategies. The Core plans to expand these community education activities to increase prostate cancer awareness among African-American men. In addition, the Core will combine its communications, information dissemination, community education, and public health promotion strategies to guide priorities for local communication campaigns that effectively distribute prostate cancer information to African-American communities in order to enhance informed decision- making strategies. These health education activities will help the CED to use optimal, culturally sensitive approaches, as well as gain insights to adapt strategies to enhance inclusion of underrepresented populations. The goal of the CED program is to increase more effective strategies to improve prostate cancer outcomes by using the community-academic partnership approach and will focus on two aims. In aim 1, CED will create mechanisms to communicate prostate cancer research findings to the lay and scientific community. We will expand upon CCRTD’s current community-based organizations, i.e., schools, churches, ministerial alliances, advocacy groups, etc. to create an environment where the lay and scientific community come together to have mutual dialogue and interaction about cancer research being conducted in laboratories of CCRTD investigators. We will employ mechanisms such as the CCRTD Patient Registry, National Symposium on Prostate Cancer, Weekly Seminar Series and Tailored Community Engagement Focus Groups to communicate cancer research being done in the laboratories to the lay community. In aim 2, we will create an environment where the lay community influences all phases of the research. This aim will utilize the Community Engagement Health Inequity Seminar Series, pilot projects and several media outlets within the Atlanta metropolitan area to have the lay community contribute to basic research being conducted in CCRTD laboratories. We will solicit recommendations and directives from the lay community regarding their concerns related to cancer research to assist investigators in establishing research avenues in their laboratories.