Community Responsive Project

SUMMARY – COMMUNITY RESPONSIVE PROJECTS PROGRAM Although academics are well-meaning in designing studies they believe will improve health, they often do not have relevant lived experience to select study questions or study designs; as a result, the research does not always address priorities for those with increased cancer risks. We will tackle this challenge by creating a Center that is embedded in the communities in which the research is conducted. The goal of the Community Responsive Project (CRP) Program is to create a mechanism to identify community priorities in cancer control research, and to enable academic and community teams to pursue those ideas. Our Cancer Center’s Community Outreach and Engagement Program has allocated $250K in support for the CRP Program, which will increase our ability to advance strong CRP ideas. We will also support academic-community teams to apply for other funding. This approach will help to sustain the concept of community-responsive research beyond the U19 funding cycle. We have created multiple and interacting mechanisms for generating ideas for the CRP Program, and an academic-community partnered review process that ensures strong representation of community perspectives. Our initial CRP, Using Community Advisory Boards (CAB) to Build and Sustain CHC-Community Connections (CHC CAB study) will build on community input, our prior collaborative work, the Center’s theme, and the Community Gateway Study, our social determinants of health SDOH project. The project will test the impact of a community health center- (CHC) based community advisory board (CHC CAB) Toolkit and implementation support to increase clinic-community linkages. The goals are to: (1) support the ability of CHCs to gather community and patient input, (2) center the community voice in both the implementation of the Gateway Study and the CRP project; and (3) increase engagement with local community partners and residents on cancer prevention and control. The ultimate goal is to build community voice into the fabric of CHC preventive care decision-making, creating a mechanism for gathering community input about cancer control priorities and programs and to build supporting community connections. Creating CABs focused on cancer control will bring to light new opportunities and needs that can be channeled into the CRP Program and integrated into the long-term planning at each CHC. The CRP Program has been designed to maximize synergy across the Center’s components, leverage the benefits of academic-community partnership, and build capacity of community members to engage in cancer control research participation and review.