? COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND ENGAGEMENT Since Duke Cancer Institute?s (DCI) inception in 2011, significant effort has gone into enhancing DCI Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) and addressing cancer health disparities. DCI uses patient data analytics to define its Catchment Area (CA) to the 85th percentile of its patient base, focused primarily on central North Carolina. DCI?s CA cancer burden was defined using a 3-pronged approach: 1) DCI senior leaders served with the State of North Carolina Advisory Committee on Cancer Coordination and Control (NC-ACCCC), the NC Cancer Prevention and Control Branch, and the NC Cancer Registry, to help conduct a county by county analysis of all cancers with a focus on cancers for which NC incidence and mortality rates either exceed the national averages, exhibit significant disparities, and/or are preventable; 2) DCI created a 20-member Community Advisory Board representing its local diversity and embarked on an extensive three-year community needs assessment campaign; and 3) DCI was one of the fifteen awardees in the first round NCI P30 supplements (2017) to assess the cancer risks and needs of its catchment area. DCI focuses significant effort on Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) including the 2012 launch of the DCI Office of Health Equity (OHE). Through these coordinated efforts DCI has identified prostate, lung, high-risk breast cancer, and GI cancers including colorectal and stomach, which are either major CA cancer burdens and/or disproportionately affect minority populations, as ?priority? target cancers in the next grant period. Tobacco, obesity and infectious agents were identified as major risk factors and cancer disparities identified as a major crosscutting challenge. This analysis guides our community engagement, community-based interventions, cancer care services, cancer health policy advocacy and research. DCI members conduct ground-breaking, multi-level research on these cancers and risk factors including research directed at understanding the social, structural and biological drivers of cancer disparities, as well as developing and implementing interventions. DCI COE is overseen by DCI?s Deputy Director, Steven Patierno, a nationally recognized expert in cancer disparities research and intervention. He works closely with Nadine Barrett, DCI Associate Director for COE, who also holds a joint DCI-CTSA sponsored position of Director of ?Alliances for Community Engagement and Stakeholder Strategy? (ACESS).
The Specific Aims for the next five years of DCI COE are: 1) to monitor the cancer-relevant needs of our Catchment Area to inform research relevant to our catchment area?s needs; 2) to perform research relevant to our catchment area?s needs and enhance the impact of our Cancer Center?s research to our Catchment Area; 3) to engage our Catchment Area communities in evidence-based strategies for cancer prevention, screening, treatment and outcomes research, with particular emphasis on underserved populations; 4) to extend DCI?s reach within and beyond our catchment area, through affiliates and other networks that bring DCI?s expertise to bear on wider populations, rural populations, and global cancer research.
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