Kansas Community Cancer Health Disparities Network

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American Indian and Latino populations suffer from significant cancer disparities. Rural Al and Latino communities, in geographically large states, such as Kansas, experience even greater access to cancer screening and treatment disadvantage due to dispersion of specialists and facilities. The Kansas Community Cancer Disparities Network (KCCDN) headquartered at the University of Kansas Medical Center will concentrate on reaching rural Al and Latinos with innovative programs to improve knowledge, access and utilization of beneficial biomedical and behavioral cancer procedures. Using community based participatory research methods (CBPR) and linking our primary care research network (the Kansas Physicians Engaged in Prevention Research, KPEPR) to our newly formed Midwest Cancer Alliance (MCA) hospital network, we will improve outreach, research, and training on cancer disparities in two rural counties; Finney County (SW Kansas; Latino) and Brown County (NE Kansas; Al). Our CNP Network will capitalize on thriving research programs offered in our AHECS, Telemedicine Center and safety-net clinic system (Kansas Association for the Medically Underserved, KAMU), and it will leverage strong and trusting relationships we have built while providing service and collecting needs assessment data in both the regional Al and Latino communities. Effective, standing community advisory boards (CABs) in each community were consulted directly during the design and planning of this proposal and we have structured a CNP Network governance that assures community interests come first. Our Outreach Core activities will build on the strengths available within the MCA, KPEPR, and the Telemedicine Office and allow for expanded and improved education through promotores, IT resources, and theory-driven strategic communications and a social marketing campaigns. With direct input from rural partners we will conduct a rigorous and controlled clinical trial, testing the efficacy of a novel intervention based on the "implementation intentions" construct to promote breast cancer screening in Latina and Al women (PI, Engelman). Our Pilot Educational Project will utilize promotores and ties to the MCA network to enhance knowledge, awareness and interest in cancer clinical trials among targeted Al and Latino communities (PI, Cupertino). Our Training Core program will rest on a strong foundation formed by our K30 clinical research curriculum program and an interdisciplinary T-32 fellowship program (PI, Greiner) specifically designed to train health disparities researchers through community-based research activities. Our KCCDN will succeed in reducing cancer disparities for Kansas' rural Latinos and American Indians because it creates a vision for seamless blending access to care enhancements, culturally tailored educational outreach, rigorous research, and junior investigator CBPR training. Using the building blocks already in place, our model program will reach vulnerable minorities and generate disseminable knowledge for the national CNP consortium.