# Advancing Cancer Control Equity Research Through Transformative Solutions in Patient Navigation - Community Responsive Projects

> **NIH NIH U19** · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $366,163

## Abstract

COMMUNITY RESPONSIVE PROJECTS – ABSTRACT
Community Responsive Projects within the Advancing Cancer Control Equity Research Through Transformative
Solutions in Patient Navigation (ACCERT PN) Center will facilitate and enhance the Center’s research program
goal of developing community-engaged interventions, measures and methods, and researcher and community
partner capacity and engagement centered around innovative multilevel patient navigation approaches and
implementation science to address structural racism and other Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) to mitigate
cancer health inequities in Chicago's Black, Latinx, and low-income Chinese communities. Within this
Community Responsive Project (CRP) initiative, we propose two pilot projects commencing in Year 1, “The Truth
Talking Tour” (CRP1) and “Social Robots Empowering Patients” (CRP2), and to establish and implement a
process for a CRP Pilot Grant Program to identify, fund, and conduct additional rapid and community responsive
pilot projects. The research areas of CRP1 and CRP2 address specific SDOH topics – including structural
racism, language accessibility, and health literacy – that have been identified as priorities by our community
partners and are SDOH focus areas for the ACCERT PN Center and its cancer patient navigation-centered
SDOH Research Project. CRP1 will use knowledge generated from Black female cancer survivors’ experiences
of an unmet need in cancer survivorship care, often dismissed or neglected by healthcare providers—information
and resources on sexual health after cancer treatment—to develop resources and training materials for patient
navigators and providers. CRP2 leverages innovations in Human-Computer/Artificial Intelligence (AI) Interaction
and Social Robotics to explore the use of AI social robots in community settings to enhance digital literacy and
cancer control health literacy among Chinese-speaking Chicago Chinatown residents who face language and
digital literacy barriers to cancer care access. Both projects will disseminate findings, lessons learned, and
resources to the ACCERT PN Center ecosystem to inform its multilevel patient navigation approaches. The two-
pronged process for soliciting applications for the CRP Pilot Grant Program will balance continuity and
relationship-strengthening through internal outreach within the ACCERT Center’s community partners to build
on existing Center projects, and broader outreach to our ACCERT PN Community Advisory Board and other
community partner networks, as well as within Northwestern University and local minority-serving institutions. A
streamlined application for proposals will reduce the burden on community partners and a community-engaged
peer review process will adapt NIH criteria to select proposals that align with community priorities related to
cancer control equity and facilitate and enhance the research related to the Center theme and the SDOH
Research Project’s intervention. CRPs will be supported by the...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10929047
- **Project number:** 1U19CA291404-01
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Marquita W. Lewis
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $366,163
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-06 → 2029-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10929047

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10929047, Advancing Cancer Control Equity Research Through Transformative Solutions in Patient Navigation - Community Responsive Projects (1U19CA291404-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10929047. Licensed CC0.

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