Community Outreach and Engagement

Cancer Centers serve their local communities by conducting relevant research, engaging with the population, and addressing the area's specific cancer needs. To do this, Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) analyzes demographics, communicates community research needs to City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center (COHCCC) members, and partners with the community to reduce cancer burden in the COHCCC Catchment Area. COHCCC’s overall COE goal is to fully integrate and amplify community outreach and engagement throughout the COHCCC and its Catchment Area. Our Catchment Area encompasses the Southern California counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino totaling 18 million people.

The COE team facilitates community-scientist-clinician collaborations for community engagement in cancer prevention and COHCCC research. COE’s work is informed by population-level data and our community health needs assessments, by guidance from our Community Advisory Board (representing the four counties of our Catchment Area), and by the COHCCC Director and Leaders.

Highlighted COHCCC COE accomplishments: Expanded and deepened ties with community partners towards reducing Catchment Area cancer burden targeting two key priority areas: common cancers (colorectal, breast, lung, prostate), and preventable cancers (cervical). We also prioritize cancers with unusual incidence in our Catchment Area (liver, myeloma). COE facilitated Catchment Area responsive research in all five COHCCC Programs. Using a “Train-the-Trainer” approach, the COE team led 78 workshops training >550 advocates, clinicians, and navigators to increase community cancer prevention (e.g., smoking cessation) and screening and trained 105 navigators to improve community research awareness and participation in clinical studies.

COE Specific Aims are: Aim 1. Identify and attend to cancer burden, risk factors, and community health needs within the COHCCC Catchment Area. Aim 2. Build capacity for community driven cancer prevention/control and implement community responsive interventions and screening to reduce cancer burden across the lifespan. Aim 3. Mobilize COHCCC Catchment Area focused research. Aim 4. Expand policy engagement on access to care and clinical studies within and beyond our Catchment Area. For the next cycle, these reach of these aims will be expanded using communication and digital technology and through implementation and team science approaches for greater reach to reduce Catchment Area cancer burden.

Grant Number: 5P30CA033572-43
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: JOHN CARPTEN