Strategic partnering to deliver cancer services to underserved communities

The NCI's Atlantic Region Cancer Information Service (CIS) and the Center for Minority Health in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh (CMH) formalized an academic/governmental partnership in 2003 to address the cancer burden in Western Pennsylvania. In this region, African American men and women have some of the highest breast and colorectal cancer mortality rates in the state. Eliminating cancer health disparities is a shared goal for CMH and CIS. To ensure a mutually beneficial partnership, a regional strategic plan was created to guide program development, implementation, and evaluation of partnerships. This session will cover the many programmatic and institutional strategies and benefits for developing a partnership of this kind. Institutionally, both organizations were able to maximize and leverage resources to address community health disparities while using cost sharing measures to reduce fiduciary burden. The strength of this relationship allows both organizations to be more regionally responsive to the cancer burden. CIS and CMH were able to emphasize organizational capacity building throughout Western PA to increase the adaptation and implementation of evidence-based cancer control programs. Successful partnership outcomes include the dissemination of NCI resources at CMH programs/events; CIS-provided training on NCI's Using What Works program to CMH partners resulting in secured grant funding to adapt and implement evidence-based programs; and CIS and CMH jointly provided training on the evidence-based program Body & Soul which has resulted in 17 churches throughout the region implementing this program to improve health outcomes within African American faith-based organizations.