The Education and Outreach Core of the proposed NCTRI Northwestern Leiomyoma Research Center will support research activities performed within and across the Center by developing communication, outreach, and education strategies to promote health equity and eliminate disparities in uterine fibroids (leiomyoma, LM). These strategies will be designed to engage three important communities: the general public, including women most impacted by fibroids; students in the Chicago area; and the scientific and medical community. This Core will: (i) raise awareness, education, and outreach regarding LM and disparities around LM; (ii) promote diverse participation in LM and reproductive research; and (iii) increase the number of bench and translational science research opportunities in LM with a special focus on minority and underserved students by partnering with key local pipeline programs to connect students to bench science opportunities within our Center. LM are highly prevalent, present in up to 80% of all women. However, awareness and knowledge regarding this highly morbid condition remain underdeveloped, especially amongst minority populations such as African American and Latina women, who also have a higher prevalence of fibroids than their white counterparts. Moreover, biospecimen donation and clinical research participation among racial/ethnic minority and medically underserved women continues to fall short, including in the realm of LM research. Without samples from diverse populations, discoveries in LM research will have limited applicability to diverse populations, perpetuating disparities in diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes. Few reproductive health research centers aim to connect education and outreach to building trust and increasing research participation from diverse populations in addition to increasing a diverse, future scientific workforce. Inadequate community engagement and empowerment of diverse communities has limited their awareness, education, and participation in clinical research and biospecimen donation. There is a need for development and implementation of sustainable, equitable partnerships between communities and researchers through collaborative research opportunities and reciprocal transfer of knowledge to reduce health disparities in LM. Through a community-engaged approach (e.g., community-based participatory design), this Core seeks to increase awareness, education, and participation in LM research amongst women, especially those from populations bearing the greatest burden of the disease. Through bridging the information gap and establishing stronger trust with communities, we will be able to better improve communication around and participation in research that directly connects with the work and investigative teams in our proposed Center. In addition, this Core aims to support the engagement of underrepresented students in the scientific research workforce. Building on decades of experience with community-engaged research, outreach, and workforce development, the Education and Outreach Core team will provide lab experiences to support this pipeline. We will first focus on communities across Chicago and then scale up to the US.
