ASPO Abstracts
Community Partnership Program: A model to build community capacity for addressing the cancer burden in Oregon.
Category: Cancer Health Disparities
Conference Year: 2020
Abstract Body:
Purpose
OHSU Knight Cancer Institute Community Partnership Program provides funding, training and technical assistance to build the capacity of community organizations across Oregon for identifying and addressing local cancer-related needs.
Methods
Community Partnership Program grants are available in three tiers to support communities with varying resources and experience. Grants range from $10-$50,000 and fund organizations to define local cancer needs, test feasibility and acceptability of evidence-based approaches and evaluate and sustain cancer efforts. Organizations receive dedicated support for evaluation, human subject’s protection, and training to select and adapt evidence-based approaches. Statewide networking opportunities offered include an annual conference and a virtual learning community. Evaluation methods include quantitative and qualitative assessment of final reports to determine partnerships, reach, impact and barriers outcomes.
Results
The program has invested nearly $3 million in 106 projects focused on geographic diversity as well as minorities and underserved populations, reaching all 36 counties in Oregon. Of these, 82% of projects target rural cancer issues, 33 proposals focus on specific cancers such as breast, lung and colorectal and 75 projects focus on cancer-related topics (e.g. diet/nutrition, HPV vaccination, and tobacco cessation). Projects focus along the cancer continuum from prevention to survivorship.
Since 2015, 76 projects have completed. 41,544 Oregonians were reached and 380 partnerships (38% new and 62% expanded) were established, with an average of 5-6 partners per organization. Partnerships were based on three core themes: Informing, Listening, and Co-Creating. Top barriers were engaging staff and partners in project implementation and challenges around workflows, logistics, and internal communication.
Conclusions
The Community Partnership Program effectively builds capacity of organizations across Oregon to address local cancer-related needs. This partnership model offers a unique opportunity for NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center’s to inform population specific cancer outreach and local research capacity to maximize reach and enhance impact to reduce the cancer burden in Oregon.
Keywords: Community Outreach Engagement Capacity Building Partnerships