May 13, 2005
CHAPEL HILL — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Program on Ethnicity, Culture and Health Outcomes (ECHO) and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center have been awarded a five-year grant to take a community approach to reducing health disparities in the adult African-American population.The National Cancer Institute awarded UNC $3.9 million in funding to develop the Carolina Community Network (CCN) to reduce breast, prostate and colorectal cancers in adult African-Americans. The network will include cancer treatment centers, research components of UNC, community groups, and health promotion-oriented institutions and organizations.

“The Carolina Community Network will engage North Carolina communities as partners to increase the success of cancer prevention and treatment activities, increase the number of community members actively involved in clinical trials and other forms of research, and strengthen the community’s knowledge of cancer risks and prevention,” said Dr. Paul Godley, the grant’s principal investigator and ECHO director.

“Our ultimate goal is to reduce the disparity in deaths from cancer.”

Godley also is associate professor of medicine and adjunct associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UNC’s schools of medicine and public health, respectively, and a member of UNC Lineberger.

Through the network, UNC scientists and physicians will collaborate with community groups to disseminate more effective messages about cancer screening and prevention and the benefits of early detection, Godley added.

The CCN will involve researchers from UNC’s schools of medicine and public health, the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and UNC Hospitals.

These UNC areas will form a central hub of resources for community cancer prevention and intervention activities, and UNC research faculty and programs will support CCN’s initial community partners: the Rocky Mount Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC) and the United Voices of Efland-Cheeks community-based organization.

“North Carolina suffers from substantial health disparities stemming from a lack of education and access to care,” said Reuben Blackwell, president and chief executive officer of OIC. “Successfully addressing these disparities requires the cohesive application of many resources, facilities and talents.

“We are partnering with UNC and coordinating with other community-based organizations to impact and change the gap between knowledge and education and the health of our citizens.”

OIC was established to provide comprehensive employment, training, child care, business and health services that strengthen opportunities for people in the communities they serve.

Additional partners include a faith-based health research network of 25 churches throughout central and eastern North Carolina through the Carolina-Shaw Partnership for the Elimination of Health Disparities-Project EXPORT, a collaboration of UNC and Shaw University.

Project EXPORT is a National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities initiative, funding Centers of Excellence in Partnerships for Community Outreach, Research on Health Disparities and Training (EXPORT). Also participating are the UNC Centers for Community Research based in the Rocky Mount and Greensboro Area Health Education Centers, the N.C. Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities, and the N.C. Historically Black Colleges and Universities Health Promotion Alliance.

“Health disparities represent one of the major problems of our time,” said Dr. Shelton Earp, director of UNC Lineberger. “Over the years, UNC’s School of Public Health and the Sheps, Health Promotion and Lineberger Cancer centers have collaborated with many North Carolina communities to help address this issue. The Carolina Community Network will make a significant difference.”

The challenge facing the Carolina Community Network is to be sensitive to community concerns while merging the strengths and assets of the community with the scientific and research expertise at UNC, Godley said. Through the development of a trusting and productive network, best-practice cancer-control interventions can be implemented.

The network builds on an idea of Dr. William L. Roper, dean of UNC’s School of Medicine, vice chancellor for medical affairs and chief executive officer of the UNC Health Care System. As dean of UNC’s School of Public Health, he envisioned ECHO as a program that would build relationships with communities statewide and facilitate interactions between community groups and researchers at UNC, Godley said.

ECHO’s mission is to eliminate health status and health outcomes disparities through translatable, evidence-based research, multidisciplinary training and education, and culturally sensitive service to North Carolina communities.

For more information, visit www.echo.unc.edu/research/CarolinaCommunityNetwork.htm or http://www.dhhs.gov/news/press/2005pres/20050506b.html.

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UNC Lineberger contact: Dianne Shaw, (919) 966-5905 or dgs@med.unc.edu News Services contact: Deb Saine, (919) 962-8415 or deborah_saine@unc.edu

For further information please contact Emily Smith either by phone at 919.966.8498 or by email at emily_smith@unc.edu

 

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