Role of community partnerships in establishing policies on cancer: National evaluation of the National Cancer Institute Community Networks Program

The proposed presentation will discuss the role community based participatory research can play in promoting policy assessments and policy activities aimed at reducing cancer health disparities. The Community Networks Program (CNP), funded by the National Cancer Institute's Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities (CRCHD), is focused on community-based participatory research (CBPR) as a strategy for addressing cancer health disparities. One important objective of the demonstration is to examine the role that CBPR can play in promoting policy changes at the federal, state and local levels. This session will present examples of how CNP grantees are using CBPR to pursue policy change agendas on cancer health disparities. The examples for this session are drawn from the CNP national evaluation. The CNP national evaluation is a 5-year, process and outcome evaluation aimed at assessing how effective the CBPR model is in promoting cancer health education and implementing primary and secondary beneficial cancer interventions aimed at underserved communities. The evaluation has three phases. CNP grantees are expected use CBPR to develop and implement policy projects in Phase II and to provide evidence-based findings to public decision-makers in Phase III. The results of performing policy analysis and disseminating evidence based findings to decision-makers are shown through peer-review journals, postings on cancer control Planet, data on decision-makers and policy makers contacted or on activities undertaken. Target outcomes include research findings to support evidence-based cancer interventions and policies and policy change on local, state and Federal levels.