# Communication in American Indians thru Strategies for Equity 4 Cancer (CASE4Cancer)

> **NIH NIH P30** · WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · 2024 · $199,967

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY:
Cancer continues to be the top cause of death for American Indians (AIs) in North Carolina. With higher rates
of colorectal cancer (CRC) late stage diagnosis and mortality and the highest smoking rate among all
race/ethnic groups in the state, there remains a critical need to reduce the use of tobacco among AIs while also
improving early detection of lung and CRC cancers in order to improve disparities and outcomes. The Atrium
Health Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center’s (AHWFBCCC) Community Outreach and
Engagement (COE) efforts are focused on addressing the disproportionate burden of cancer in the catchment
area. NC has the largest AI population east of the Mississippi River, making addressing the cancer-related
health needs of AI communities critical to this mission. Our recent integration with Atrium Health presents a
unique opportunity to leverage complementary strengths across both cancer campuses to expand our reach by
building on existing foundational collaborations and activities. Together, we propose to apply an innovative,
multi-channel outreach and educational campaign to increase cancer awareness, preventive behaviors, and
lifesaving screenings, to help address cultural and demographic issues contributing to disparities in health
literacy and cancer in AIs. To accomplish this, we have two Specific Aims that are an extension of our Year 1
MICEO project: 1) To build on the culturally sensitive communication campaign initiated in Year 1, we will
develop a comprehensive dissemination plan, including community and paid social media campaigns, and
expand our reach to all tribes in NC; and 2) Using the Audience-Channel-Message-Evaluation (ACME)
framework for health communications campaigns as a guide, we will enhance plans in Year 1 to conduct a
more comprehensive evaluation across campaign development, implementation and outcome measurement..
We will continue partnering with our tribal communities in an iterative process to create, implement, and
evaluate culturally tailored educational cancer communication messaging to increase cancer awareness,
preventive behaviors, and lifesaving screenings. Leveraging established infrastructure and foundational
collaborations will facilitate development of a community outreach and education intervention that is
sustainable and can disseminate best practice for future adaptation and implementation.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11141967
- **Project number:** 3P30CA012197-49S3
- **Recipient organization:** WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** Ruben A. Mesa
- **Activity code:** P30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $199,967
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2024-09-01 → 2025-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11141967

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11141967, Communication in American Indians thru Strategies for Equity 4 Cancer (CASE4Cancer) (3P30CA012197-49S3). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11141967. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*