Community Outreach and Engagement

Roswell Park Cancer Institute Corp, Buffalo NY

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY (ABSTRACT) Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center has served Western New York (WNY) for 125 years with a unifying mission to understand, prevent, and cure cancer. A central component of this mission is to meet the needs of Roswell Park's catchment area population with a specific focus on strategies to reduce the cancer burden. For more than three decades, Roswell Park has defined our catchment area as the eight counties surrounding the main medical campus in Buffalo, NY, and this region includes urban, rural, and Appalachian regions. Our COE is led by Elizabeth Bouchard, PhD, Associate Director and Senior Vice President for Community Outreach and Engagement. At Roswell Park, we have a rich tradition of community-engaged research that has been fostered through strong support from our Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) leadership. Over the last five years, our Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) CCSG component has expanded effective partnerships, processes, and strategies to ensure that WNY communities are the central focus of our CCSG mission. We achieve this through two broad visions that drive our CCSG. First, the needs of our community motivate what we focus on. Second, the context and perspectives of communities in our catchment area drive how we conduct research. Our COE program has driven a unified, community-partnered strategic planning process to ensure that the needs and priorities of communities in our catchment area are catalyzing high-impact science. Community-driven priorities for cancer research and cancer control are: lung cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, tobacco use, physical activity and nutrition, and social factors. Our specific aims are designed to achieve these broad visions. Aim 1: To implement data-driven and community-engaged processes to understand significant cancer burden relevant to the catchment area and rigorously monitor impact. Aim 2: To facilitate research and clinical trial participation across Roswell Park relevant to the significant cancer burden in WNY. Aim 3. To implement evidence-based interventions, disseminate educational materials and resources, and advance policy to reduce the cancer burden in the Roswell Park catchment area and beyond. Our COE has built robust internal and external infrastructure, and we are now observing the beneficial impacts of these long- standing initiatives through increased community-academic research partnerships and improvements in important cancer-relevant metrics in WNY. We have worked with our Community Advisory Board and community partners to identify the following areas for future growth: (1) enhance navigation and support across the cancer continuum; and (2) increase focus on the social factors that shape cancer risk and outcomes. Our long-term goal is to ensure that Roswell Park continues to benefit all community members and beyond as a source of scientific excellence and innovation in cancer prevention and care.