Outreach and Engagement: Colleagues Come Together to Improve Community Care

It is crucial that community outreach offices engage in conversations centered around key matters affecting National Cancer Institute (NCI)–designated cancer centers such as Cancer Center Support Grants (CCSGs) and catchment, according to Kiara Ellis, MSW.

“[Working in community outreach], we serve as a key bridge in developing best practices that will be impactful,” Ellis said. “There are centers that do a lot of work with their patient population—how do we approach [them] about clinical trials? How do we share information about these complicated cancers? What is it they want to know? It’s the outreach offices that drive that work. Sometimes they can be underutilized or not tapped [into] for that expertise in all settings. But being able to bring relationships to the cancer centers anchors the center in its community. Without that component and great support for that component, the cancer center [doesn’t have] the legs it needs to be interactive in its community.”

Bringing members of NCI-designated cancer center community outreach and engagement (COE) offices together serves to extend an office’s impact in its community. Since its formation in 2019, the Cancer Center Community Impact Forum (CCCIF), a national annual meeting of COE professionals in the US, has highlighted matters essential to COE offices. During the 2023 CCCIF, key topics such as catchment and CCSGs were discussed, giving community outreach professionals the opportunity to see how peers are engaging their community to extend the reach of their cancer centers.

Ellis, director of community outreach and engagement at the Masonic Cancer Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a founder of the conference, which was created to be tactical and practical for staff in the cancer centers. “[Topics we discuss with colleagues include] how to build our community engagement boards, showcasing successful offices that got high marks in their CCSG,” Ellis said. “Who are those champions, and how did they highlight the wins that their office had in their CCSG to get that high score? We talk about catchment and connection with our clinical partners, [as well as] marketing and communications and the role [they play] in lifting up the community outreach work that we do.”

The 5-year CCSG has proven to be instrumental for institutions, with the University of California San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center noting that the grant is a major source of federal funding for the center, equaling approximately $7 million in total costs per year.1 Yale Cancer Center in New Haven, Connecticut, also reported that the CCSG provides the resources and infrastructure to aid in the coordination of 6 of the center’s interdisciplinary research programs, which range from basic laboratory research to clinical investigations.2 “

[Catchment is] one of those huge and powerful topics because I don’t know that all our outreach staff and faculty are as immersed in geospatial mapping and that data piece [of it]. Catchment informs our work,” Ellis said.

The catchment area of the Masonic Cancer Center encompasses all of Minnesota. According to the center’s website, meeting diverse communities is essential: Minnesota has the largest Somali American population in the US, the largest urban population of Hmong people in the world, and 11 federally recognized American Indian tribes.3

“The work we’ve done has been bringing awareness to our community partners about this amazing resource. [Masonic is] a hidden gem in the Twin Cities; you don’t have to go far for great care, and you don’t have to go far if you’re interested or thinking about clinical research or being involved in it. We’re right in your city. There are ways you can engage with us, and meeting [the] community where they’re at is one of the biggest ways we’ve gone about doing it,” Ellis said.

One of the preconference activities at the 2023 CCCIF meeting included a community tour. “[At] Sylvester [Comprehensive Cancer Center in Miami, Florida,] we got to see their Game Changer mobile unit and how they’re doing screening in the community,” Ellis said. “They brought the unit [to the community], their staff was there, and we got to talk to them and ask questions focused on that example.”

Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center’s 3 customized Game Changer motorhomes have been bringing free cancer screenings to neighborhoods in South Florida since 2018, thanks to support from community organizations and philanthropic donors. Multilingual health care professionals from Sylvester travel to local libraries, businesses, and community events such as health fairs to offer screening for HIV and prostate, colorectal, gastric, and head/neck cancers.4

In the first 7 months of 2023, Sylvester officials reported that more than 300 adults had been screened and 33 positive results identified; those with positive results were referred for follow-up care.4

“One of the bigger impacts from this conference is [the] connection to NCI, how decisions are made, and [what] future planning is happening for various areas. Community outreach—in any space, not just cancer centers—sometimes is a topic that can be glossed over,” Ellis said. “The way that our groups have come together has shown us how essential these offices are and how supporting that infrastructure can push forward and make a large impact in the communities we serve, which is our goal.”

References

1. Understanding the CCSG. University of California San Francisco. Accessed December 19, 2023. https://bit.ly/47m8kQx

2. The Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG/ P30). Yale Cancer Center. Accessed December 19, 2023. https://bit.ly/3RPsSMv

3. About community outreach and engagement. University of Minnesota. Accessed December 19, 2023. https://bit.ly/3TrqrRD

4. Sylvester’s Game Changer vehicles bring free cancer screenings to underserved South Florida communities. News release. Newswise. August 23, 2023. Accessed December 19, 2023. https://bit.ly/48HW5Pl