In response to RFA CA-09-032, the Center for Asian Health of Temple University proposes to establish a regional Asian Community Cancer Health Disparities Center (ACCHDC) to address the cancer burden and co-morbidities among underserved Asian American populations through community outreach, research, and training. The proposed Center builds upon the successful collaborations that were fostered during the previous ATECAR SPN and ATECAR CNP-I cycles and consists of academic institutions, community organizations, and community healthcare providers. The ACCHDC will work towards the overall goal of reducing cancer health disparities by increasing knowledge of, access to and utilization of beneficial biomedical and behavioral procedures in underserved Asian American communities. This goal will be accomplished using community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles to guide all Center activities, which fall within four components: the Administrative Core (AC), Community Outreach Program (COP), Research Program (RP) and Training Program (TP). The AC will provide essential administrative, scientific, programmatic, and community leadership and timely coordination of Center operations. The COP will focus on building cancer control capacity and increasing knowledge and access to cancer prevention among the multi-ethnic and multilingual Asian communities in the eastern region of the US (PA, NJ and NYC). Under the RP, a large-scale controlled trial will be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a CBPR colorectal cancer (CRC) intervention in increasing screening, knowledge of, perceived risks of and susceptibility to CRC and benefits of screening, as well as reducing health system barriers to screening. The pilot study, led by a junior investigator, will evaluate the effectiveness of a culturally appropriate education intervention in increasing knowledge of and intent to participate in Hepatitis B biospecimen research and examining cultural factors associated with the participation in biospecimen research. The TP will develop and implement a comprehensive research training program in CBPR methods and provide mentorship and key resources to junior researchers from racial/ethnic minority and underrepresented groups. Center team members have forged successful collaborations during ATECAR SPN and CNP-I, have established strong partnerships with Asian communities and are dedicated to the Center's mission of reducing cancer health disparities in underserved Asian Americans.
The proposed ACCHDC program will make a significant contributions toward enhancing our understanding of, and increasing our capacity to reduce, cancer health disparities among Asian Americans. In addition, the program has great potential for serving as a model program that can be implemented in other communities to achieve the NCI strategic goal of reaching underserved communities touched by cancer.
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