Abstract A31: Evaluating a diverse and cross community and academic partnership to promote colorectal cancer screening guidelines
Authors: Kim Karen , Quinn Michael , Chandrasekar Edwin , Patel Reena , Lam Helen 
Published: March 2017

Background A community and academic partnership is a powerful vehicle to translate lessons learned in research to a wider audience and bring about changes that can improve community health and eventually eliminate health disparities. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an approach to research that focuses on the development of a community-academic partnership. In CBPR, researchers work collaboratively with communities as true partners and use CBPR principles, such as co-learning and mutual benefit, to address identified public health concerns. Evaluating these partnerships and understanding the conditions and processes within CBPR that lead to achieving project goals, such as successful research implementation and outcomes, is important to move the science of CBPR forward. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a cross community and academic partnership that involved seven Asian communities (Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Laotian, South Asians and Vietnamese) that were different in culture, immigration history, and language.

Method The parent project was designed to use a community-centered dissemination model to promote the adoption of colorectal cancer screening guidelines in Asian Americans (AA). The academic investigator has already established a good rapport with all partners prior to the project and has done projects with some of them in the past. Since community capacity building and sustainability are key values and outcomes of CBPR, an initial assessment of each partner's capacity and readiness was conducted during the first three months. Based on the findings, the research team conducted several training sessions throughout the 3-year project period to build capacity. In-person quarterly meetings were conduct to discuss project progress, solicit inputs for survey tools, disseminate findings and share lessons learned. The meeting sites were rotated among partners. A website was established to communicate project activities, findings and allow members to post comments. All partner leaderships were asked to participate in an one-on-one, in-depth interview at the end of the project to describe their experience of the partnership and the CBPR process. All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed. All transcripts were coded and reviewed by three research members until consensus arrived on all themes.

Results Overall project satisfaction rates were high, ranging from 8 to 10 out of a 10 scale (0=not at all satisfy and 10 = extremely satisfy). All partner leaderships reported that the project aligned with their priorities and values, although there were differences across organizations, from “including more specific education around specific diseases” to “getting some data for our work”. All leadership reported getting benefits from participating in the project. They also placed high value on the co-learning experience, from the academia and from other organizations. They also felt strongly about the collaboration, among partners and academia, and the attention they got as “mutually, equitably and well distributed”. Some organizations in their early development stage felt empowered by learning from more established organizations. Some saw the project as an opportunity to explore some other issues in their communities. All partners wanted to maintain the task force and to brainstorm issues that were relevant to Asian communities, even after the funding was ended.

Conclusion A diverse and cross community partnership may sound complicated; however, with careful planning from the academic research team and mutual respect from all partners, it can enrich the CBPR process and generate greater outcomes.

Citation Format: Karen Kim, Michael Quinn, Edwin Chandrasekar, Reena Patel, Helen Lam. Evaluating a diverse and cross community and academic partnership to promote colorectal cancer screening guidelines. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Ninth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2016 Sep 25-28; Fort Lauderdale, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2017;26(2 Suppl):Abstract nr A31.