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Forming a Partnership to Reduce
Disparities in Cancer Outcomes
The Institute for Cancer Prevention (IFCP), an NCI-designated cancer center, and three institutions
within the City University of New York (CUNY) – Brooklyn
College, Hunter College, and The Graduate Center--will
collaborate to address the disparate cancer burden in minority
populations and increase the participation of minority scientists
in behavioral and translational cancer research. The goal
of the project is to train scientists, faculty, and graduate
students in research, educational, and outreach approaches to
cancer prevention and control with minority populations.
This goal will be accomplished through the following specific
aims:
1) Establish an
infrastructure for planning activities that will develop long-term
collaborations between the IFCP and CUNY;
2) Generate
participation in cancer prevention and control research among
CUNY minority graduate students through didactic training and
mentored research experiences;
3) Train minority
scientists at CUNY and IFCP in behavioral and translational
approaches to cancer prevention and control with minority
populations through educational seminars, collaborative research,
and professional development programs; and
4) Involve minority
community partners in planning education and outreach
initiatives, to be implemented jointly by community members,
educators from CUNY, and researchers from IFCP.
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Multi-Disciplinary Collaborations
Within and Across Institutions
The central components of the CUNY-IFCP
Collaboration are didactic training and direct involvement in
research. Key personnel include scientists and faculty from IFCP;
CUNY’s Doctoral Programs in Psychology, including the Health
Psychology Concentration; Brooklyn College’s Departments of
Health and Nutrition Sciences and Psychology; and Hunter College’s
Programs in Urban Public Health and Community Health Education.
The Executive Committee consists of Dr. Steven Stellman of IFCP; Dr. Stephen Lepore of CUNY’s Program in
Experimental Psychology at Brooklyn College and Doctoral Programs
in Social-Personality and Environmental Psychology at The
Graduate Center; Dr. Tracey Revenson of CUNY’s Doctoral
Program in Social-Personality Psychology at The Graduate Center;
and Dr. Deborah Blocker of CUNY’s Program in Urban Public
Health at Hunter College.
An important outcome of this collaboration
will be interdisciplinary research collaborations between
sociobehavioral and biomedical scientists at CUNY and the IFCP.
This type of partnership is central to training a generation of
social, behavioral, and biomedical scientists who are equipped to
think across levels of analysis, and develop cross-disciplinary
collaborations. Training behavioral scientists in
translational research is central to the mission of The Office of
Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) of NIH, created
in 1995. The IFCP is in a unique position to
implement OBSSR’s translational vision in three areas of
established research excellence: breast, colorectal, and
tobacco-related cancers. Through collaborations with
behavioral and social scientists at CUNY, research initiatives
will follow the guidelines established for cancer control
research by the NCI Cancer Control Program Review Group in 1997
to develop basic and applied research in the behavioral sciences
which will, independently, or in combination with biomedical
approaches, be designed to reduce cancer risk, incidence, and
improve quality-of-life.
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Combining
Institutional Strengths
The CUNY-IFCP will take advantage of the unique and complementary
strengths of the two institutions. CUNY’s strengths
include: 1) an infrastructure of ongoing programs that
support minority undergraduate and graduate students through
their training; 2) a large population of minority graduate
students, especially in masters-degree granting programs that
emphasize public health training; 3) a large population of
faculty members, including minority faculty members, with
expertise in social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral
fields that are relevant to implementing cancer control
initiatives with minority populations; and 4) extensive
relationships with community agencies and hospitals for field
placements and research initiatives. The IFCP’s
strengths include: 1) recognized excellence in conducting
interdisciplinary and translational cancer control research; 2) a
substantial number of extramurally-funded cancer grants with
minority populations; 3) scientists who are experienced in
training and mentoring graduate students, postdoctoral fellows,
and faculty in epidemiological, biomedical, and behavioral
approaches to cancer prevention and control; and 4) access to
research populations through collaborating medical centers,
community health centers, and school districts.
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The
CUNY-IFCP Collaboration: Summary of
CUNY Benefits and Contributions
The CUNY-IFCP Collaboration will contribute
significantly to the strength and breadth of CUNY’s graduate
training programs in the behavioral and health sciences, its
ability to attract and retain talented minority graduate
students, and the range of professional development opportunities
for minority faculty. In addition, it will increase the
behavioral and translational research initiatives undertaken to
reduce the cancer burden in the minority communities that CUNY
aims to serve. The Collaboration also will contribute
significantly to expanding and formalizing IFCP’s cancer
research training initiatives for minority scientists.
Again, this will result in increased behavioral and translational
research initiatives undertaken to reduce the cancer burden in
minority communities. Developing a training program for
minority scientists will be made possible through collaborations
between IFCP’s scientists and experienced CUNY educators,
who coordinate research-based graduate training programs in
psychology, nutrition, public health, and community health
education. Behavioral research initiatives at IFCP will be
increased through their collaborations with behavioral scientists
at The Graduate Center, Brooklyn College, and Hunter College, who
are experienced in conducting research related to behavior and
public health, ethnic minority issues, community interventions,
and community outreach. Through these collaborations the IFCP will
gain access to a large number of nationally-recognized social
scientists with expertise in social, behavioral, and public
health approaches to research and community outreach and
interventions, and a group of minority masters and doctoral
students with strong basic training in the behavioral and social
sciences who are interested in applying this knowledge to cancer
control and prevention efforts.
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Benefits to CUNY
Training in
Translational Cancer Research. The CUNY-IFCP Collaboration
will be especially beneficial to the doctoral faculty and student
trainees at CUNY. The Collaboration will emphasize
development of doctoral-level faculty and students with interests
and expertise relevant to behavioral research in cancer or to
translating basic research findings in cancer to social and
behavioral cancer research, interventions, education programs,
and community outreach. Through its ongoing projects
and programs, the IFCP can provide CUNY’s minority doctoral
students and faculty with research opportunities in which to
expand and hone their research skills. Collaborative projects can
serve as research sites for all participating faculty and
students, and provide an ideal setting for externship projects
for students in the Health Concentration and for dissertation
research. On a purely pedagogical level, the IFCP’s
expertise in cancer biology and cancer control strengthens a weak
link in the GC’s training of behavioral scientists,
providing coursework, research experiences and mentoring in the
areas of cancer biology, clinical trials, and cancer epidemiology.
Graduate students in Public Health programs also will benefit
from the training opportunities provided by joint research and
program projects, such as school-based health education programs
and church-based outreach programs that we hope to develop in the
course of the Collaboration to reduce cancer risk in minority
communities.
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Access to
patient, community, and school-based populations. The IFCP has developed a network of ties with community organizations,
including hospitals and health agencies, which can provide CUNY
faculty and trainees with access to populations in which to study
health care processes among ethnic minority groups.
For instance, the IFCP is well connected with physicians
treating cancer patients at the North General Hospital in Harlem,
NY, the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, NY, and the
Crozer-Keystone Health System in Philadelphia, PA. In
addition, IFCP has strong ties with the Baptist Church community
in Mount Vernon, NY, and School District 8 in the South Bronx.
These partnerships will provide excellent training opportunities
for graduate students and faculty into the challenges of
recruitment and retention in research and outreach initiatives
with minority populations. Early exposure to the barriers
encountered in involving minorities in collaborations with
universities and medical institutions and successfully overcoming
them are critical aspects of training in conducting both clinical
and community-based trials.
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Participation /
Collaboration in the Extramural Grants Process. The proposed CUNY-IFCP Collaboration is designed to increase the quantity and
quality of pilot research projects conducted by faculty and
doctoral students, and the number of grant applications submitted
to federal agencies, private foundations, and internal (CUNY)
agencies. IFCP’s experience and grant funding as an
NCI-designated cancer center will benefit CUNY faculty and
students in providing opportunities to collaborate on grant
applications, apply for minority supplements on funded grants,
and receive mentored training in conducting behavioral and
translational cancer research. The IFCP has a number of
ongoing and planned projects in cancer control and prevention
that can provide placement opportunities for minority students (undergraduate,
pre-doctoral, and post-doctoral students) interested in getting
research and practical experiences in cancer research and
community outreach and interventions. The various funded
minority programs and graduate training programs at Brooklyn and
Hunter Colleges need placements for students to gain research and
practical outreach and intervention experience. These
programs can act as a pipeline to the IFCP programs.
We see this as a mutually beneficial arrangement, since it will
increase the presence of minorities in the IFCP programs of
research, while meeting the placement and training needs of
Brooklyn and Hunter Colleges.
CUNY Contributions to the
IFCP
Developing
Behavioral Science Training Initiatives for Minority Students,
Faculty, and Scientists. While the IFCP has trained numerous
minority scientists in biomedical approaches to cancer control,
they have not trained many behavioral scientists in translational
approaches largely because of limited research expertise in this
area. Since Dr. Royak-Schaler’s arrival at the IFCP in April, 1999, she has focused on expanding the
interdisciplinary studies conducted in the Cancer Control &
Health Promotion (CCHP) Programs, which link behavioral and
biomedical science. The Collaboration will significantly
increase the potential for behavioral and translational research
initiatives in her program through faculty-scientist
collaborations. This will, in turn, increase the training
opportunities for both faculty and graduate students in
translational cancer research. One of the proposed pilots,
Exposure to Carcinogens in Tobacco Smoke: Role of Race, Gender,
and Stress, illustrates this type of collaboration.
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Expanding
Behavioral Research Conducted in the CCHP Program.
Collaborations with behavioral scientists at CUNY will facilitate
expanding cancer control research in the areas of tobacco-related,
breast, and colorectal cancers. In addition, the expertise
of CUNY faculty in prostate cancer (Dr. Stephen Lepore) will
allow the IFCP to expand its cancer control initiatives with
African Americans into this important area. Furthermore,
CUNY expertise in child health (Dr. Katherine Rolland), physical
activity (Dr. Chris Dunbar), and evaluation research (Dr. Brenda
Seals) will facilitate expansion and evaluation of the Know Your
Body Program in cancer risk reduction among minority school
children. Improving the health of children and reducing their
risks of developing cancer was an important focus of Dr. Ernst Wynder, the founder of the
IFCP, during the last ten years of
his career. IFCP sponsors an annual Child Health Day,
which will provide educational and outreach training
opportunities for CUNY graduate students. Through these
collaborations the IFCP’s CCHP Program will gain access to
a large number of nationally-recognized social scientists with
expertise in social, behavioral, and public health approaches to
research and community outreach and interventions, and a group of
minority masters and doctoral students with strong basic training
in the behavioral and social sciences who are interested in
applying this knowledge to cancer control and prevention efforts.
Access to
Minority Populations. CUNY has extensive ties with minority
communities. For instance, Dr. Blocker has established many
links with community and hospital agencies throughout the
metropolitan-NY community that are focused on public health.
In addition, Dr. Patricia Antoniello, a faculty member in the
department of Health and Nutrition Sciences at Brooklyn College,
is the Chairperson for the Brooklyn Health Coalition. This
coalition consists of dozens of community-based organizations
with interests in promoting health in the Brooklyn Community.
Many of these organizations could provide opportunities for
reaching minority populations for research and cancer education
projects.
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