This community-based participatory research outreach proposal represents a significant shift in focus, from intervention delivery on an individual level, to a focus on enhancing the capacity of community organizations to activate collective resources to translate available evidence to address their priorities and needs.
Our aim i s to develop an organizational-level intervention to enable communities to adopt, adapt, implement and sustain evidence-based interventions (EBls) to address cancer disparities among Latinos. We target faith-based organizations, since they play a highly prominent role in Latino community life, provide a trusted resource for spiritual guidance, communication, social support, and provide access to a large segment of the Latino population. This three-phase study will: (1) improve understanding of the organizational infrastructure, skills and resources required by Latino churches to implement EBls for cancer control, (2) develop a capacity-building intervention;and (3) test the intervention's effectiveness in a randomized trial with churches as the unit of intervention and analysis, in which churches will be assigned to either a """"""""Capacity Enhancement"""""""" (CE) intervention ora """"""""Standard Dissemination"""""""" (SD) condition. This study will greatiy accelerate the research productivity of Dr. Jennifer Allen, co-PI, Assistant Professor at the Dana-Farber and Harvard Medical school. Co-PI Dr. Maria Idali Torres, Director of the Gaston Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy and senior faculty member at UMB, has an established track record of leading large-scale community-based research, and can provide excellent mentorship for Dr. Allen. Dr. Allen's aims to become a leading researcher in the field of dissemination science to eliminate cancer disparities. Both the Survey and Statistical Methods Core and Training Core will significantiy contribute to this project.
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