The mission of the Policy and Dissemination Core is to facilitate the dissemination of evidence emerging from the UlC CPHHD projects, and its translation into health policy and health care, with the goal of eliminating health inequities and disparities in health outcomes. This Core will lead, facilitate, and participate in activities with a variety of key partners in order to accelerate the translation of evidence-based information and interventions into improvements in health policy, provision of health care, and community health. To accomplish this, we will build upon existing relationships to engage and partner with stakeholders representing three categories of target groups: policy makers (governmental, private sector, and legislators), providers of health care (hospitals, health departments, industry, and professionals), and communities (health care activists and the general public). We will work collaboratively with our many partners to promote change at all levels, ranging from societal to individual, to improve minority health and reduce health disparities. During our first six years, our CPHHD has partnered with the three target groups in efforts that have successfully disseminated research findings to key stakeholders, resulting in health care policy changes in Illinois. We accomplished this primarily through the Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force, which is a city-wide effort that brought together 74 institutions in a collaborative effort to address breast cancer disparities.^ The Leader of our Policy and Dissemination Core, Dr. Ferrans, has been a primary leader of the Task Force since its inception and currently serves on its Board of Directors. Based on the research findings produced by our UlC CPHHD, as well as other researchers in Chicago, the Task Force produced a report outiining 37 recommendations to address the fact that mortality from breast cancer for African-American women in Chicago is twice that of Caucasian women. Spurred by the work of the Task Force, the Illinois Breast and Cervical Cancer Program was expanded to include all women without medical insurance. This has made Illinois the most progressive state in the nation by providing screening and diagnostic tests without charge, as well as treatment for breast cancer, for women with financial need. In addition, legislation drafted specifically to address the Task Force's 37 recommendations was recently signed into law, after passing unanimously in the Illinois Senate and House of Representatives. Using our experience as a model, we will continue to work collaboratively with the Task Force and other partners to disseminate research findings from our original CPHHD projects and the results of the proposed projects as they become available. We also will continue to work together with the Task Force to promote additional policy changes. For example, the Task Force recentiy created a Policy Committee, which will be linked with the UlC CPHHD through the participation of Dr. Ferrans and Dr. Ann Marie Murphy (Director of the Quality Consortium) in our CPHHD External Advisory Group to facilitate policy changes identified as the most critical for remedying the excessive mortality. We also will build on the strength of our team's experience with other important initiatives, such as the Stay Beautiful-Stay Alive outreach program of the National Black Leadership Initiative on Cancer;the Chicago REACH OUT program funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;the Patient Navigator Research Program funded by NCI;and our own Greater Roseland Breast Cancer Task Force, which was initially created by the UlC CPHHD at its inception. These efforts have provided definitive insights into the barriers to care and models for improving health-seeking behaviors through community outreach, patient navigation, and culturally appropriate messaging. In all of these efforts, we will build on our significant partnerships developed among researchers, community leaders, community based organizations, and health care providers over more than 20 years, as we have worked together to address cancer in minorities in Chicago. The work of the UlC CPHHD will continue to be informed by principles of community-based participatory research for equitable involvement of community members, researchers, and organizational representatives.[2,3]
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