Hispanics/Latinos (H/L) are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer at later stages than non-Hispanics, due to barriers associated with knowledge, access to care, and language. Further, the American Cancer Society estimates more than half of all cancer deaths could be prevented by making healthy behavior choices (completing appropriate cancer screening tests, maintaining a healthy weight, eating a balanced diet, engaging in regular physical activity, using sun protection, limiting alcohol consumption, and abstaining from tobacco). However, there is a lack of Spanish-language cancer education and prevention resources that have been culturally and contextually created for this audience. Additionally, H/L populations often tend to be viewed as one aggregate demographic group, when, in fact, there are sub-ethnicities within this population that have unique cultural and psychographic characteristics. Attending to these specific characteristics in the design and promotion of cancer prevention education may improve H/L health and represents a form of preference-based precision medicine/communication. Results from our team?s previous work and the work of others indicate effective communication, leading to increased knowledge and behavior change can occur in multiple forms. Recent studies report community- focused, preference-based, culturally adapted programs have been successful in increasing cancer-screening behaviors in H/L. We propose to build on our foundation of community-focused educational activities established during the previous funding periods and expand our goals to: reach rural areas in Puerto Rico (PR) and areas heavily populated by PRs in Florida (FL) through tailored education and the conduct of our Salud! serie de charlas in PR (a series of interactive community meetings, previously held only in FL), and conduct the community/researcher forum El Puente (The Bridge) in FL (previously held only in PR), and expand our use of social media and new technologies for measuring impacts of our efforts. In addition, we propose using the culturally-adapted Spanish version of ?Cancer 101: A Cancer Education and Training Program for Hispanics/Latinos - Version 2? (Cancer 101) as a ?train-the-trainer? curriculum to address the identified cancer- related educational needs of H/L. This adapted curriculum serves two goals: 1) it delivers culturally-tailored cancer information to H/L community members and 2) it trains a new cadre of public health students to assist the Outreach Core (OC) in disseminating cancer information. Our activities are designed to increase awareness of cancer prevention, early detection, treatment programs, and cancer research for H/L in FL, and PR. Our efforts are bolstered by the Community Health Educator (CHE) and our Community Advisory Panels (CAPs) to strengthen and sustain community partnerships/collaborative activities with key academic, community, and regional partners at both sites, and to assist with recruitment and retention of H/Ls into partnership projects, such as the PR Biobank and the Community Participant Registry.
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