Community Outreach and Engagement

Community Outreach and Engagement Component A core mission of the Lurie Cancer Center (LCC) is to reduce the burden of cancer across all populations, with special focus and emphasis on its catchment area. The LCC defines its catchment area (LCC-CA) as the nine counties located in northeastern Illinois (IL) that constitute the Chicago metropolitan area. This is a dense area of nearly 8.5 million people, accounting for more than two-thirds of the Illinois population. Approximately 85% of the LCC patient population comes from the LCC-CA. The LCC works closely with state agencies, communities, and local partners to define health challenges and barriers to cancer care and to address cancer disparities that are among the highest in the nation. The LCC employs a community-focused approach to engagement and outreach activities with key stakeholders across the catchment area, and it catalyzes, supports, and facilitates a broad portfolio of research that is driven by key needs and issues specific to the cancer burden in the catchment area. Such efforts bring scientific discoveries across the translational research spectrum to the community. Implementation and community-engaged science, aiming to minimize cancer incidence and mortality and eliminate disparities, are key elements of such efforts. In parallel, the LCC engages local, state, and national policy makers in advocacy and policy development, modification, and implementation. This comprehensive LCC-CA approach directly addresses the cancer health challenges that have existed in our catchment area for decades and has resulted in significant strides over the years, especially within the current funding period. Going forward, the LCC will continue to seek to champion the voices of LCC’s catchment area communities, provide tailored cancer education and outreach, increase access to consistently high-quality cancer care, and develop hypotheses and promote research approaches that will benefit populations facing the highest cancer burden in our catchment area.