As the Official Cancer Center of the State of New Mexico and as one of the nation's NCI-Designated Cancer Centers (2P30CA118100-09), the UNMCC has built collaborative partnerships with community oncologists and healthcare systems throughout the State of New Mexico to create the New Mexico Cancer Care Alliance (NMCCA), a joint 501c3 statewide cancer clinical trials organization and clinical research network. Through both these collaborative partnerships, UNMCC has worked to improve the quality of cancer care in our region; to enhance community-based cancer education, screening, and prevention; to promote community based participatory research; and to increase awareness, access and participation of all New Mexicans in NCl sponsored cancer screening, prevention and therapeutic clinical trials. The sites detailed herein which have worked together for 13 years to enroll New Mexico's highly diverse multiethnic and frequently underserved cancer patients on NCI Cooperative Group trials, as well as investigator initiated and industry trials; plan to continue this collaboration as the New Mexico NCI Community Oncology Research Program Minority/Underserved (NM NCORP). The NM NCORP has a catchment area for both the clinical trials program and the cancer care delivery research that includes the entire State. With a higher percentage of Hispanics and American Indians than any other state, New Mexico's 2.0 million citizens are 40.5% non-Hispanic White, 46.3% Hispanic, 9.4% American Indian, 2.1 % Black and the remainder is Asian & other ethnic minorities. New Mexicans experience unusual cancer patterns and tremendous cancer health disparities. New Mexico is ranked 43rd in the United States for per capita income. According to the 2011 Census Bureau 18.4% of New Mexicans live below the poverty level well above the national average of 13%. Over 50% of New Mexicans live in rural areas of the State with often limited access to healthcare and 22.9% of New Mexicans are uninsured (ranging from 4.8% to 31.6% among the different New Mexico counties). Of the patients accrued to cancer clinical trials at the UNMCC in 2012, 51% were racial/ethnic minorities (37.3% Hispanic/Latino, 8.2% American Indian, 2.1% African American, 1.1% Asian persons, 1.1% Native Hawaiians, and 1.1% reporting (two or more races) and 55% were women.
Serving a vast geographic region of great beauty, with rich multicultural and multiethnic diversity, tremendous scientific opportunity, and challenging health and socioeconomic disparities, the NM NCORP is committed to making significant advances in cancer research and assuring access and participation in NCI-sponsored clinical trials to our regional communities.
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