Outreach Core Activities

The Outreach Core (OC) of the Ponce Health Sciences University-Moffitt Cancer Center (PHSU-MCC) Partnership provides community outreach and education to improve cancer screening behaviors in our catchment area populations. The overall goal of the OC is to increase community cancer awareness, community engagement, and participation in cancer research and outreach in our catchment areas. Working closely with other Partnership cores and investigators, the team proposes to elevate and expand its activities to facilitate reciprocal communication between community members and partnership researchers through OC educational activities, training opportunities, supporting participant recruitment efforts, and incorporating the Community Advisory Panel (CAP) feedback on partnership research projects. Together with community members and Partnership researchers, the OC will increase cancer awareness, community engagement, and participation in cancer research in communities served by MCC (in FL) and PHSU (in PR) through the following three Specific Aims: Aim 1: To develop, deliver, and disseminate cancer education and outreach activities to our catchment area populations. The team will deliver cancer education to communities in PR and FL using evidence-based programs through multiple delivery strategies and reflecting partnership research priorities and topics of interest identified by community members. Aim 2: To enhance capacity for mutually beneficial research engagement to address cancer health priorities in our catchment areas. The team will facilitate communication between community members and partnership investigators (e.g., CAP Research Corner), support partnership research that is responsive to community needs (translational research), promote community participation in the partnership's research activities/projects, and train researchers and community members in community engagement principles. Aim 3: To expand the capacity to train community members as lay health promoters to deliver evidence-based cancer education programs in their communities. The team will train community members and community partners/organizations to deliver evidence-based cancer education (e.g., Cancer 101, OC activities) in their local communities.