The Urban Latino-African American Cancer Disparity Project (ULAAC Disparities Project) links Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital (DFMH), a community hospital in service of a high need/low resource urban community (45% Latino, 45% African American) with major research institutions; University of Southern California and University of California San Francisco, and RAND to create a permanent clinical trials infrastructure. This collaboration generates an unprecedented opportunity to reduce disparities in access to radiation oncology, cancer prevention and translational research trials as well as demonstrate an intervention model with potential application to similar urban communities throughout the nation. The Project builds and stabilizes independent and collaborative clinical research capabilities of DFMH with its partners and improves ability to extend access to radiation oncology clinical research to African American and Latino persons with cancer and at high risk for cancer. The Project uses a cultural and language appropriate to the Health Educator to outreach to potential patients for Project-sponsored clinical and prevention trials, explain the benefits of trials participation, and identify and recruit trials participants. The Health Educator identifies potential Project patients through the 383 primary care physicians in the Project's target service community. Outreach through primary care physicians builds on established patient and physician relationships that can, with Project interventions, overcome patient reticence and other barriers to clinical totals. The assignment of patients to Patient Navigators facilitates the care process by improving coordination of care functions that will in turn improve the quality of the medical interaction and increase enrollment and retention of patients in clinical trials. The Project demonstrates the use of a Health Educator and Patient Navigator-facilitated interventions to recruit and encourage African American and Latino persons with breast or prostate cancer or at high risk for these conditions to participate in and successfully complete radiation oncology clinical trials, a partial breast irradiation trial, cancer prevention trials and certain translational research investigations. A crucial Project component is systematic evaluation. The evaluation assesses the needs and concerns of stakeholders and provides ongoing feedback and suggests alternative approaches.
