U.C. Berkeley to Receive Grant for Initiative to Reduce Cancer Disparities
For Immediate Release
December 2, 2010
Contact: Ricci Graham
(510) 763-0370
Washington D.C. – Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-09) announced today that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) will award the University of California at Berkeley a five-year grant as part of the Community Networks Program (CNP) National and Regional Centers for Reducing Cancer Disparities initiative.
The new CNP Center, which received $788,830 in funding for the first year, is part of a $100 million investment to establish 23 CNP Centers across the country. The awards support highly innovative partnerships among academic institutions, community organizations, and community-serving healthcare providers.
“It’s widely acknowledged that communities of color throughout the nation suffer disproportionately from higher cancer rates,” Congresswoman Lee said. “I am pleased that the University of California, Berkeley has been selected to work closely with community groups in the East Bay to find ways to reduce cancer disparities.”
Said Joan Bloom, professor of health policy and management at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and one of the project’s principal investigators: “This is an exciting collaboration between UC Berkeley, Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research, and faith-based community organizations, including mosques and African American churches. What’s unique about this initiative is that it is one of the first to focus on and work with Afghan immigrant women.”
Through these CNP Centers, the fight against cancer health disparities is being elevated to a new level, and tangible steps are being taken to eliminate disparities by working in partnership with and through communities to address their cancer prevention and control needs. Community-based participatory research engages diverse stakeholders (community members, health care delivery teams, decision makers) to combine research with action aimed at improving health outcomes and reducing specific cancer health disparities.
The CNP Centers are funded through the NCI Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities (CRCHD) and are a key part of NCI’s efforts to reduce the unequal burden of cancer in our society and train the next generation of competitive researchers in cancer and cancer health disparities research.
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