Advancing Cancer Control Equity Research Through Transformative Solutions in Patient Navigation - Community Responsive Projects

COMMUNITY RESPONSIVE PROJECTS – ABSTRACT Community Responsive Projects within the Advancing Cancer Control Equity Research Through Transformative Solutions in Patient Navigation (ACCERT PN) Center will facilitate and enhance the Center’s research program goal of developing community-engaged interventions, measures and methods, and researcher and community

partner capacity and engagement centered around innovative multilevel patient navigation approaches and implementation science to address structural racism and other Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) to mitigate cancer health inequities in Chicago's Black, Latinx, and low-income Chinese communities. Within this

Community Responsive Project (CRP) initiative, we propose two pilot projects commencing in Year 1, “The Truth Talking Tour” (CRP1) and “Social Robots Empowering Patients” (CRP2), and to establish and implement a process for a CRP Pilot Grant Program to identify, fund, and conduct additional rapid and community responsive

pilot projects. The research areas of CRP1 and CRP2 address specific SDOH topics – including structural racism, language accessibility, and health literacy – that have been identified as priorities by our community partners and are SDOH focus areas for the ACCERT PN Center and its cancer patient navigation-centered

SDOH Research Project. CRP1 will use knowledge generated from Black female cancer survivors’ experiences of an unmet need in cancer survivorship care, often dismissed or neglected by healthcare providers—information and resources on sexual health after cancer treatment—to develop resources and training materials for patient

navigators and providers. CRP2 leverages innovations in Human-Computer/Artificial Intelligence (AI) Interaction and Social Robotics to explore the use of AI social robots in community settings to enhance digital literacy and cancer control health literacy among Chinese-speaking Chicago Chinatown residents who face language and

digital literacy barriers to cancer care access. Both projects will disseminate findings, lessons learned, and resources to the ACCERT PN Center ecosystem to inform its multilevel patient navigation approaches. The two- pronged process for soliciting applications for the CRP Pilot Grant Program will balance continuity and

relationship-strengthening through internal outreach within the ACCERT Center’s community partners to build on existing Center projects, and broader outreach to our ACCERT PN Community Advisory Board and other community partner networks, as well as within Northwestern University and local minority-serving institutions. A

streamlined application for proposals will reduce the burden on community partners and a community-engaged peer review process will adapt NIH criteria to select proposals that align with community priorities related to cancer control equity and facilitate and enhance the research related to the Center theme and the SDOH

Research Project’s intervention. CRPs will be supported by the Center’s Administrative Core and Research Methods, Measures, and Data Management Core which will facilitate connections and integration with the ACCERT PN ecosystem, including its advisory bodies and capacity-building resources.