With the highest proportion of Hispanics and American Indians of any State (42% Hispanic, and 10% American Indian), New Mexico's 1.9 million people have tremendous cancer health disparities. Ranking only 47th in per capita income, New Mexico's population is relatively young, poor (27%), and uninsured (22%). Nearly 50% live in rural areas with limited access to healthcare. Tracked by The New Mexico Tumor Registry, a founding member of the NCI SEER Program, New Mexico's multiethnic populations has strikingly different patterns of cancer incidence and mortality. While Northern NM Hispanics are derived primarily from early Spanish land grant families, Southern NM Hispanics are more frequently of Mexican descent. The Tribal communities of New Mexico are particularly diverse, with 19 Pueblos, the Navajo Nation and three Navajo Bands, and the Jicarilla and Mescalero Apaches. In this rich context, the goals of The New Mexico Minority-Based Community Clinical Oncology Program (NM MBCCOP) are to build community capacity for clinical research through cancer education and outreach programs, and, to overcome significant socioeconomic and cultural barriers to increase access and accrual to NCI-sponsored cancer treatment and prevention clinical trials. Funded since 2000 (U10CA86780), the NM MBCCOP has worked diligently to build a build a collaborative statewide community clinical trials network (The New Mexico Cancer Care Alliance (NMCCA)) through cooperating legal agreements with shared governance, a single IRB, and integrated operations. The 102 physician participants (61 types A and 41 type B) cover the entire State. The primary regulatory and data management functions of the NM MBCCOP and the NMCCA are located at The University of New Mexico Cancer Center (UNMCC) with 8 other component and 2 affiliate community sites. The NMCCA is primarily responsible for implementing and managing the NM MBCCOP in community settings. In the past funding period, the NM MBCCOP surpassed its accrual goals, averaging 85.7 annual therapeutic and 65.34 annual prevention/control accrual credits. Therapeutic trial accruals have increased 25%. In the last funding period, 521 patients were accrued to NM MBCCOP trials, 319 (61.2%) of whom were ethnic minorities (180 Hispanic, 36 American Indian, and 103 mixed race, other minority, or undeclared). The NM MBCCOP is now poised to significantly increase overall accrual and to improve its prevention and cancer control clinical trial menu in order to increase accrual to prevention and control trials. In summary, the NM MBCCOP has a strong, well functioning statewide infrastructure, a successful accrual record, and a strategic plan for future growth.
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