Strengthening Community Engagement in Colorectal Cancer Screening and Clinical Trial Enrollment Through a Community Health Educator

NIH RePORTER · NIH · P30 · $115,000 · view on reporter.nih.gov ↗

Abstract

Abstract: In this extension of support application, the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, an NCI-designated Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University proposes to continue integration with current outreach efforts of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center (SKCC) Enterprise through the catalyst of the NCI's National Outreach Network (NON) and the Community Health Educator (CHE). These efforts have translated to virtual education and engagement. The CHE will work with existing SKCC outreach efforts to coordinate colorectal cancer (CRC) screening education that leads to early detection actions and cancer clinical trial (CCT) education in underserved communities that identify as of African descent, Latinx, or Chinese immigrant. The SKCC catchment area, the tri-State region of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware is characterized by dense urban populations, rural farmlands, and some of the greatest cancer health inequities in the country. SKCC's concerted commitment to Reduce the Longevity Gap systematically seeks to increase access to cancer care and to CCTs. Clinical trials that are currently being promoted are the NCI's Tomosynthesis Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial (TMIST), ECOG-ACRIN EAZ171 Studying Neuropathy in Black Women, and Circulating Tumor Cells in Patients with Breast Cancer (RO-1). We hypothesize that our culturally informed and community engaged educational interventions on CRC and on CCT will improve CRC screening and CCT knowledge and interest, respectively. We propose three Specific Aims: 1. Integrate National Outreach Network (NON) CHE within research and virtual outreach efforts throughout our cancer center, our catchment areas, the communities served, and our region. 2. Plan, conduct, and assess CHE-facilitated virtual community education and outreach, aligned with NCI and cancer center research and outreach priorities, within underserved communities, locally and regionally to enhance CRC screening and CCT enrollment. 3. Strengthen partnerships and collaborations with key NCI-sponsored academic, research, community, and regional partners to enhance NCI's ability to reach underserved communities more effectively and virtually with tailored cancer information and to foster virtual community engagement in research to enhance CRC screening and CCT enrollment. Strategies to track, monitor and evaluate the efficacy/impact of our proposed work will utilize our culturally informed and community-engaged intervention to address CRC screening and CCT enrollment. Our efforts now include remote consenting, digital assessments of knowledge and beliefs about CRC screening and CCT enrollment, virtual health education platforms, social media and electronic record recruitment, and video tools.

Key facts

NIH application ID
10372730
Project number
3P30CA056036-22S1
Recipient
THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY
Principal Investigator
KAREN E KNUDSEN
Activity code
P30
Funding institute
NIH
Fiscal year
2021
Award amount
$115,000
Award type
3
Project period
1995-06-22 → 2023-05-31