291605
Collaborating to address medical systems changes in cancer care with community initiation and accountability
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Alexandra Lightfoot, EdD,
Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
Christina Hardy, MPH,
Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Nora Jones, MEd,
501(C)3 agency which sponsors anti-racism workshops, The Partnership Project, Greensboro, NC
Eugenia Eng, MPH, DrPH,
Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Health Behavior, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Samuel Cykert, MD,
Division of General Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology and NC Area Health Education Centers Program, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Robert Aronson, DrPH,
Department of Public Health Education, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC
Skip Hislop,
Cone Health Regional Cancer Center, Greensboro, NC
Deanna LaMotte, MPH,
Department of Health Behavior, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Amanda Briggs, MPH,
UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Chapel Hill, NC
Background: There has been a trend over the last decade of research funding to support the equitable involvement of community partners as leaders in designing and delivering projects that affect their community; especially to address the disparity in cancer mortality rates that remain between White and African American patients. A 10-year, community-academic-medical partnership exists in Greensboro, NC for the purpose of promoting racial equity in healthcare, and building upon previous research work to address its community's concerns. Methods: Recently, the partnership collaborated to write, and was awarded, a systems change intervention grant (R01 application to NCI: Accountability for Cancer Care through Undoing Racism and Equity; ACCURE). The goal is to increase racial equity in treatment for early stage breast and lung cancer at two cancer centers. Grounded in the principles of transparency and accountability as taught by The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond's Undoing Racism™ training, the partnership decided to introduce 2 transparency and 2 accountability intervention components in the participating health care systems to produce systems change. Discussion: Past studies performed by the collaboration highlighted the probability of system-related structural bias in cancer care. This presentation will highlight the use of those data by the partnership to develop interventions to address these barriers to equitable outcomes; as well as positive and negative ways that the partnership was affected by the grant implementation. Conclusion: By collaborating to write and manage ACCURE with local accountability, this partnership has yielded a model that aims to eliminate disparities and improve healthcare systems.
Learning Areas:
Administration, management, leadership
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related research
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health
Learning Objectives:
Describe processes taken by the partnership in developing innovative intervention components of a CBPR study to promote racial equity in health and health care through systems change at two cancer systems.
List positive and negative experiences of the partnership in reaching decisions on intervention components and the establishment of implementation management.
Keyword(s): System Involvement, Community-Based Partnership
Presenting author's disclosure statement:Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Alexandra Lightfoot, EdD, is the Director of the Community-Based Participatory Research Core at the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In this capacity, she provides consultation and technical advice to increase equity in community-academic research partnerships. She is Co-Investigator on the ACCURE project overseeing the process evaluation of this system change intervention focused on increasing equity in cancer treatment.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines,
and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed
in my presentation.
