The Virginia Advancing Cancer Control Engaged Research through Transformative Solutions Center

The Virginia Advancing Cancer Control Engaged Research Through Transformative Solutions (VA-ACCERT) Center is an academic-public partnership between an interdisciplinary team of investigators from the Virginia Commonwealth University, the Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences at Old Dominion University, and Virginia’s U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-administered public housing communities. The goal and cross-cutting theme of the VA-ACCERT Center is to improve dissemination and implementation of health promotion and cancer prevention services within income-based communities and across the state-wide public housing system in an effort to close the gaps in cancer health outcomes among certain populations. The VA-ACCERT Center will utilize two essential theoretical models: the Collective Efficacy Mechanism of Action Model to build social capital, community empowerment, and collective efficacy and elements from the Social Cognitive Theory and Social Ecological Model to inform multi-level behavioral change. Community members will engage with the VA-ACCERT Center through these frameworks to aid in the cultural adaptation and delivery of evidence-based intervention practices, and their participation may include serving on the Housing Collaborative Community Advisory Board, as Co-Leads and participants in Center-supported research projects, and/or serving as peer-to-peer health advisors. Led by a Multiple Principal Investigator triad with demonstrable experience in conducting community-engaged cancer control research, the VA-ACCERT Center includes four interdependent components: a large, five-year, multi-level, interventional Social Drivers of Health Research (SDOH) Project designed to improve healthy dietary patterns and reduce sedentary lifestyle through gains in low and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity; a Community Responsive Research Projects initiative that will support the design, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination of four research projects; a Research Methods, Measures, and Data Management Core that will provide integral qualitative and quantitative research services spanning the data management, study coordination, measure development, study or methods adaptation, ethical considerations, and data sharing for all Center-supported research initiatives; and an Administrative Core supporting essential internal and external communications and coordination, guided by several advisory entities. In addition, VA-ACCERT leadership will be engaged in national Consortium-wide efforts involving four other National Cancer Institute-funded ACCERT Centers and a Central Coordination Center. The VA-ACCERT Center will also be a hub for engaging early-career investigators in community-based, multi-level science research. These investigators will be equipped with the skills and support to shape new directions in cancer prevention efforts within income-based housing communities. Ultimately, the VA-ACCERT Center will disseminate and promote its findings and best practices for wide-scale adoption and sustainability across income-based housing communities locally and nationally.