Administrative Supplement to Continue NCI-Supported Community Outreach Capacity through Community Health Educators of the National Outreach Network

Oregon Health & Science University, Portland OR

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

Project Summary The Knight Cancer Institute Community Health Educator program reaches our catchment area of the state of Oregon. Oregon is a largely rural state, with 25 of our 36 counties coded as rural or “non-metropolitan” (Rural- Urban Continuum codes (RUCC) 4-9) counties. These counties constitute a large geographic area and are quite distant from a city center and from the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, the only designated cancer center between Seattle and Sacramento. The Knight Cancer Institute is committed to addressing cancer health disparities resulting from the combined burden of racial/ethnic underrepresentation and geographic isolation through integration of Community Health Educators within Knight Community Outreach and Engagement (COE). Over the past two years we have focused our efforts on increasing education and uptake of HPV vaccination and education, awareness and enrollment in cancer clinical trials, with a particular emphasis on our highly rural and low-income communities. Despite the dramatic impacts of COVID-19 over the past year we have had success in reaching and educating individuals who were spending more time online (we heavily promoted HPV education to college-aged populations, gathering 69 completed pre-post surveys; our CT-101 initiative garnered 2 completed pre-post surveys and we had 3 successful trial enrollments). In the past year we have made substantial adaptations to our approaches, allowing us to extend our reach to the entire state. In the coming two years we will continue implementation of these successfully adapted approaches, including the addition of mobile van education and vaccination and extension of CEUs to the statewide Traditional Health Worker workforce. These efforts are aligned with the larger comprehensive work of the Knight Community Outreach and Engagement program, allowing for sustained implementation of innovative, collaborative-heavy CHE approaches.