The Fox Chase Cancer Center proposes to: 1) develop, implement and evaluate a series of innovative educational interventions for primary health care professionals and community leaders which emphasize cancer prevention, screening, detection and treatment; 2) target these educational interventions to the needs of underserved communities and population groups with disproportionate cancer incidence and mortality, especially African American, the elderly and people with low socioeconomic status; and 3) promote subregional collaboration among organizations that will enhance the capability of professionals, leaders and service providers to promote health education and utilize available resources to enhance future development and delivery of cancer prevention and control initiatives. Specifically, we will use the Fox Chase Cancer Center Outreach Education grant to plan, implement, and evaluate three annual community-based conferences (""""""""Cancer Control for the 1990's"""""""") plus three linked Health Professional Education Programs in our service area. This Outreach Education Program is based on prior health professional continuing education programs, a successful Cancer Information Service Program, targeted health professional education supported by the Cancer Control Science Program Project grant a Cancer Prevention Awareness Program Project targeted to African American populations in the Philadelphia area, a highly successful conference entitled, """"""""Problems, Progress and Promise: Cancer Control in the 90's"""""""", and CME forums for primary care physician education. This Outreach Education Program will rely on the resources of the Fox Chase Cancer Center as well as the eight community hospitals that have a contractual relationship with the Fox Chase Cancer Center through the Fox Chase Network which promotes prevention and screening activities, research protocol participation and state-of-the-art cancer patient management. The primary assumptions of this proposal are that: 1) education and training targeted to primary care physicians are critical if we are to achieve the year 2000 objectives; 2) community-based gatekeepers and representatives are ideally situated to help advance initiatives, particularly if they are made aware of the issues and are provided resources to facilitate independent actions; and 3) high risk and underserved populations will be better served if cancer prevention and control services are able to network with primary care physicians and community representatives.
