South Carolina Cancer Disparities Community Network-ll builds upon the many successes we achieved as a Community Networks Program funded in CNP-I. SCCDCN-ll's overarching goal is to contribute materially to: understanding the underiying causes of cancer-related health disparities;discovering and developing effective innovations to lower incidence, improve survival, and reduce suffering;delivering these innovations to high-risk populations;and, finally, moving them to widespread dissemination. We focus on African Americans (AAs) in South Carolina, a group in a region with much higher-than-average cancer incidence and extraordinarily high mortality given incidence. Our goal will be realized by achieving these Specific Aims: 1. To use the full range of expertise represented in our academic and community partnerships, to increase the knowledge base needed to understand which biomedical and behavioral procedures are most likely to prevent and control cancer in the high-risk African-American communities in South Carolina; 2. Based on discoveries derived from thorough understanding ofthe literature, careful consideration of our own descriptive studies and observations, and feedback from community partners, to develop and test interventions that are likely to reduce cancer incidence, downstage disease at time of diagnosis, increase longevity, and improve gualitv of life in people with cancer; 3. To deliver interventions shown to be effective to places of greatest receptivity and public health need and to evaluate them in terms of generalizability (i.e., external validity);and 4. To disseminate results from successful interventions in the form of intervention """"""""packages"""""""" within our communities in South Carolina and to work with national partners to determine and distinguish universal elements that will work most (or at least many) places and others that are more place- and culture-specific. The success of SCCDCN-ll is predicated on: strong community support;dedication to the principles of community-based participatory research;understanding that the philosophical underpinnings and practical methods of applying knowledge are essentially the same across interdisciplinary, translational and communitybased participatory research;that the tripartite missions of research, education, and service are both inseparable and highly interdependent;and that training ofthe next generation of scientists dedicated to the highest ideals of community-based participatory, interdisciplinary, and translational research is necessary in order to reduce, and then finally eliminate cancer-related health disparities.
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