Advancing Cancer Control Engaged Research Through Transformative Solutions in Patient Navigation - Community Responsive Projects

Northwestern University At Chicago, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

COMMUNITY RESPONSIVE PROJECTS – ABSTRACT Community Responsive Projects within the Advancing Cancer Control Engaged Research Through Transformative Solutions in Patient Navigation (ACCERT PN) Center will facilitate and enhance the Center’s research program goal of developing community-engaged interventions, measures and methods, and researcher and community partner capacity and engagement centered around innovative multilevel patient navigation approaches and implementation science to address worsening cancer health outcomes in patient populations with low access to care in Northwestern University’s catchment area communities. Within this Community Responsive Project (CRP) initiative, we propose two pilot projects commencing in Year 1, “The Truth Talking Tour” (CRP1) and “Social Robots Empowering Patients” (CRP2), and to establish and implement a process for a CRP Pilot Grant Program to identify, fund, and conduct additional rapid and community responsive pilot projects. The research areas of CRP1 and CRP2 address specific topics addressing multiple determinants of health – including social and contextual barriers to health, language accessibility, and health literacy – that have been identified as priorities by our community partners and are focus areas for the ACCERT PN Center and its cancer patient navigation-centered Signature Research Project. CRP1 will use knowledge generated from cancer survivors’ experiences of unmet needs in cancer survivorship care to develop communication tools on supportive health services important to cancer survivors. CRP2 leverages innovations in Human-Computer/Artificial Intelligence (AI) Interaction and Social Robotics to explore the use of AI social robots in community settings to enhance digital literacy and cancer control health literacy among a Chicago communities that face language and digital literacy barriers to cancer care access. Both projects will disseminate findings, lessons learned, and resources to the ACCERT PN Center ecosystem to inform its multilevel patient navigation approaches. The two-pronged process for soliciting applications for the CRP Pilot Grant Program will balance continuity and relationship-strengthening through internal outreach within the ACCERT Center’s community partners to build on existing Center projects, and broader outreach to our ACCERT PN Community Advisory Board and other community partner networks, as well as within Northwestern University and local institutions. A streamlined application for proposals will reduce the burden on community partners and a community-engaged peer review process will adapt NIH criteria to select proposals that align with community priorities related to cancer control engaged research and facilitate and enhance the research related to the Center theme and the Signature Research Project’s intervention. CRPs will be supported by the Center’s Administrative Core and Research Methods, Measures, and Data Management Core which will facilitate connections and integration with the ACCERT PN ecosystem, including its advisory bodies and capacity-building resources.