Cancer Action Councils: Vehicles within a CBPR partnership to build community capacity in medically underserved urban neighborhoods

Community capacity is defined as the characteristics of communities that affect their ability to identify, mobilize, and address social and public health problems. As such, it is instrumental to the success of sustainable interventions addressing health inequities. Queens Library HealthLink (QLHL) is a CBPR project in which a public library system, NCI designated cancer center, public hospital, and cancer education/outreach organization partner to reduce cancer disparities in 20 medically underserved communities in Queens, NY. Through libraries, community stakeholders were organized into neighborhood-based Cancer Action Councils (CACs), charged with identifying local needs and culturally tailoring interventions. This presentation will demonstrate how CACs served as vehicles for building community capacity to reduce cancer disparities. CAC members identified the need for networking across the partnership and CACs to better link their communities to cancer-specific resources (e.g., support groups, screenings, education). CACs created structured opportunities for networking and cultivated multiple leadership roles for CAC members. Emerging leaders guided CACs in utilizing partnership and outside resources to raise awareness of cancer disparities and mobilized community members to address disparities through education and targeted programming. CACs developed unique methods to tailor and enhance access to cancer screening and treatment for their neighbors, linking them into a continuum of care. Thus, actions of the CACs, including developing local leadership, effectively utilizing volunteers, and creatively employing resources, have fostered an increase in community capacity. The ways in which building community capacity has contributed to the success of QLHL in reducing cancer disparities will be explored in the presentation.