Community Outreach and Engagement

Dartmouth College, Hanover NH

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY: COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND ENGAGEMENT (COE) Under new leadership of Judy Rees, BM, BCh, PhDCPS, and benefiting from significantly increased Dartmouth Cancer Center (DCC) investment, several P30 Administrative Supplements, and enhancements to leadership and staffing, the DCC Office of Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) has increased substantially its capacity to make and evaluate meaningful changes within DCC and its catchment area of NH and VT—a largely rural area with an older population and a disproportionate cancer burden. To support these changes, COE has developed strategic and collaborative partnerships internally—including the DCC Triple Helix workgroup comprised of COE and CRTEC—and externally, including community partners with expanded roles. Following a systematic process, COE analyzed population data to assess the catchment’s cancer burden, leading DCC’s Community Advisory Board to select four priority cancers for DCC to address in the catchment: melanoma, breast, colorectal, and lung. To explore catchment risk factors, attitudes, and behaviors related to these cancers, COE’s 2022 population survey reached 1,717 catchment residents, revealing important experiences of rural residents and individuals with lower educational attainment. COE then convened Community Engagement Studios to engage these populations in guiding our intervention approaches. With increased emphasis on catalyzing catchment-focused, community-engaged research in DCC’s four Research Programs, COE has strengthened its partnerships, incorporated COE requirements and community reviews into DCC’s developmental grant process, and now offers new engagement options to Program Members, including Community Engagement Studios and Community Research Ambassador partnerships. COE also assesses the representation of underserved catchment populations in DCC trials and partners with DCC’s Offices of Clinical Research and Marketing and Communications to facilitate accruals. Interventions to address the catchment area’s cancer burden include a multi-component intervention, to increase lung cancer screening among rural Vermonters, and an online module to improve rural residents’ knowledge of and intentions toward colorectal cancer screening and prevention—both with favorable results. Other interventions include the deployment of sunscreen dispensers into public spaces, the design and testing of an intervention to increase home radon testing, and a communication intervention to promote mammography in high-deprivation communities. To monitor the impact of these actions, COE evaluates process, outcome, and impact metrics, as delineated in its logic model. Moving forward, COE will strengthen its ability to effect change through its lead role in redeveloping the NH cancer coalition, by applying interventions to new settings to reach older adults, rural residents, and individuals with lower educational attainment; and through its many partnerships with community-based organizations in NH and VT, the Triple Helix workgroup, and community health leaders across Dartmouth.