It has been well documented that disparities exist between African Americans and European-Americans with egard to morbidity and mortality associated with breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer. While greatprogress has been made on the research of factors associated with health disparities in the past few years,Further work is necessary with regard to translation of this proven efficacious research to practice. The goalof this research project is to examine the effectiveness of a multicomponent program that addresses breast,cervical, and colorectal cancer screening among African American women 50 years of age and olderattending four local churches in Jefferson County, Alabama using community-based participatory research.This research program is a continuation of a successful ongoing collaborative effort between the UABMinority Health and Research Center, local churches, and a community-based coalition - Healthyongregations Healthy Communities (HCHC). We will adapt the Forsyth County Cancer Screening Project(FoCaS), a multicomponent intervention developed by Paskett and colleagues to promote breast andcervical cancer screening among low-income women, primarily African Americans, 40 years of age andolder. We will expand the church component of this program and include colorectal cancer screening as partof our efforts. We will first conduct a formative evaluation phase to adapt and refine the existing interventionin conjunction with our partners. We will then train the congregational health leaders, who, in turn, willimplement the adapted multicomponent program among 200 African American women 50 years of age andolder in their respective churches. Immediate as well as annual outcomes of the proposed program will becarefully and extensively evaluated. Finally, based on a 'hub and spoke' approach, we will disseminate thetested program to other churches in Jefferson County, Alabama. The existing churches will serve as'mentors' for the new churches who are willing to implement the tested program.
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