CCHEC Project #1: Reducing Tobacco Use Disparitiesin Safety Net Community Health Centers

Despite 5 major academic research-intensive medical centers, 2 NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers and millions of dollars in cancer research funding, Chicago consistently ranks in the upper decile amongst the nation’s worst cancer disparities. An undertapped approach for addressing cancer disparities and advancing cancer health equity is the forging of strong bridges among the institutions that serve underrepresented populations with research intensive, NCI-designated cancer centers. Our collaborative aims to change the game in how we work toward eliminating Chicago’s cancer health disparities by directly building and connecting bridges across 2 federally designated Hispanic Serving Institutions, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU), and an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center, the Northwestern University Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center (RHLCCC-NU). This proposed Chicago Collaborative to Promote and Advance Cancer Health Equity (CCPACHE) will build on several cross-institutional grants and partnerships, including an NCI P20, to create the cross-institutional infrastructure and cohesive network necessary to catalyze the complementary strengths of UIC, NEIU, and RHLCCC-NU toward cancer health equity. The constellation of research, training, education, community outreach, and strong minority and underrepresented student and faculty presence will directly impact the research scientist workforce and increase cancer disparities research and outreach. UIC and NEIU hold outstanding track records of enrolling and graduating minority and nontraditional students across undergraduate through professional degree levels and have built longstanding partnerships with Chicago communities. Complementing the strengths of NEIU and UIC, RHLCCC-NU conducts a broad range of basic, clinical, and population science research and has expertise and experience to recruit and train students and faculty in cancer research. This collaborative will accomplish the following objectives: 1) cross-fertilize research among NEIU and UIC faculty and students with RHLCCC-NU across the cancer continuum, from prevention to survivorship; 2) enhance RHLCCC-NU, UIC and NEIU collaborative research efforts and networking opportunities through cross-sponsored conferences, symposia, and research education opportunities; 3) advance team-based research projects that will generate a steady pipeline of students, fellows and faculty that continue in advanced studies; 4) embed innovative experience-learning curricular modifications to expose students to cancer disparities research; and 5) develop scientists who will produce more competitive grant applications and succeed in securing funding. To support our achievement of these objectives in this U54, we propose 4 Cores, 1 Research Project and 2 Pilot Research Projects.