Advocate Leadership Summit Conference Workshops

This year in the United States alone, an estimated 40,610 women and 460 men will die of breast cancer. With breast cancer research becoming increasingly multidisciplinary and highly complex, the demand for sophisticated advocates working in this environment continues to grow. Patient advocates must be equipped with skills in scientific peer review and in critical appraisal to take leadership roles in clinical, scientific, policy, and legislative decision making that affects breast cancer research and public policy.

NBCC has been a leader in supplying the education, tools, and training that enable breast cancer survivors and other advocates to take leadership roles in the clinical and scientific decisions that affect breast cancer. This year, NBCC will offer two conference workshops, “Participating Effectively in a Scientific Peer Review” and “Ramp Up Your Critical Appraisal Skills,” at the National Breast Cancer Coalition’s 2018 Advocate Leadership Summit on April 30, 2018 in Arlington, Virginia. Each of these one-hour workshops will be presented in the morning and repeated in the afternoon to accommodate the schedule of as many advocates as possible, and they will be videotaped for viewing in an online format on the NBCC website.

The objectives of the project are to engage the community of breast cancer patient advocates to develop and refine the skills needed to meaningfully and effectively participate in the scientific peer-review process, and to develop and enhance critical appraisal skills required to analyze scientific literature and scientific proposals, and disseminate research studies. Additionally, the project team aims to ensure that the community of breast cancer patient advocates is prepared to actively integrate into the research process by engaging advocates in ongoing skill building and education, equipping them with the tools and skills they need to meaningfully participate as collaborators with scientists, with PCORI, and at all levels of breast cancer research.

The project’s engagement plan for breast cancer patients, caregivers, and members of breast cancer advocate organizations includes involving them in a planning committee for the project. The workshop planning committee members will include breast cancer patients who have experience with PCOR and CER. The committee will meet via conference call, and it will be an opportunity for patients and stakeholders to provide input into the specific program objectives, content, and workshop presenters. One of the presenters at each workshop will be a patient advocate.

The project team is a coalition of partners—like-minded member organizations and thousands of individual advocates working together to achieve the mission of ending breast cancer. All of these organizations and individual advocates are partners in sharing information about NBCC’s important programs. In addition, academic researchers comprise the faculty of the project’s training and education programs.