The goal of this project is to build trust and lasting partnerships with hard-to-reach populations who traditionally face disparities in cancer care and outcomes. It will engage them in substantial patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) efforts. Patients, family members, healthcare providers, and researchers will be involved in developing capacity to study ways to improve the coordination and quality of care required to reduce the prevalence of breast, colon, lung, and prostate cancers in the target populations in Memphis, Tennessee, and beyond. The project’s Patient-Stakeholder Council will become the voice for patients’ needs and ideas for improving the healthcare system as it relates to cancer outcomes and research. Additionally, patients and community members will primarily be responsible for identifying patients’ priorities for comparative effectiveness research and developing tools for patient and providers to improve trust and communication to effectively collaborate through all stages of the PCOR process.

The projected output from this project is the establishment of a network of patient/family partners, including the patient-stakeholder council and community trainees that will remain involved after the project/funding period ends. Through this partnership, we will create training materials to facilitate research, provider, and community stakeholder participation in PCOR methods and development of patient-centered research questions to pursue in the future.

Project collaborators include the University of Memphis School of Public Health, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, Methodist Healthcare Foundation, West Cancer Center, Congregational Health Network, patient/caregiver stakeholders and research, provider, and community stakeholders, patient and caregiver focus group participants.