Partner Spotlight
Equal Hope: Ending cancer disparities through prevention
Equal Hope’s mission is to save women’s lives by ending health disparities in Illinois, especially for breast and cervical cancers.
In 2022, UChicago Medicine awarded Equal Hope $50,000 in funding, which was used to hire a full-time community health worker (CHW) focused on cervical cancer prevention and outeach in areas with the highest morbidity and mortality rates. The CHW educates and guides uninsured women on the South Side to free cervical cancer screenings. The project provides care coordination for women by establishing regular care upon the completion of their screening. Equal Hope was able to serve more than 8,000 people in year one of funding.
South Side residents are twice as likely to die from cancer than those who live just about anywhere else in America. In fact, cancer is the second-leading cause of death on the South Side.
New $815 million cancer center to expand access and treatment options for South Side residents
In February 2022, UChicago Medicine announced plans to build Chicago’s first freestanding center dedicated to cancer care and research. The 575,000-square-foot, world-class facility is scheduled to open in 2027. It will provide patients and the South Side community with more access to the newest ways to find and treat cancer.
We worked with South Side residents and community groups to better understand their needs and preferences as we plan for the cancer center.
Our work with the community included two online town hall meetings with more than 100 people taking part, small-group talks and a community survey.
Construction on the new cancer center is set to start in 2023 and will include 500 new construction jobs. At least 41% of contract dollars will go to minority-owned and woman-owned firms.
Connecting the community to cancer treatment, innovations and research
With more than 200 cancer specialists, new treatments and research and clinical trials not found anywhere else, the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center (UCCCC) is leading the way in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. UCCCC is one of two NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers in Illinois.
Much of UCCCC’s community outreach is led by the UChicago Medicine Office of Community Engagement and Cancer Health Equity.
The Office of Community Engagement and Cancer Health Equity (OCECHE) partners with community, cultural and religious organizations and healthcare groups. Sharing the most up-to-date education tools developed for culturally diverse populations, OCECHE works to include a larger and more diverse group in cancer research and clinical trials.
In 2020, the office began a Community-Academic Partnership Development and Project Planning Mini-Grant Program as a way to involve community outreach and engagement in each of the four UCCCC cancer research programs: Molecular Mechanisms of Cancer, Immunology and Cancer, Clinical and Experimental Therapeutics, and Cancer Prevention and Control. This was to make sure that research is informed by community needs and priorities, and that the findings and impact of the work are shared with the community.
Now in its third cycle, the mini-grant budget is three times larger and supports community-academic projects up to $10,000. The mini-grants provide resources to support more effective communications with community members and better involve them in the research process.
Empowered U is a program funded by the V-Foundation and ESPN. Funding was awarded to UCCCC Community Outreach and Engagement Assistant Director, Nita Karnik Lee, MD, MPH.
The program will work to have more African Americans taking part in clinical trials and will address clinical trial myths vs. facts. Education and outreach will be supported through a multi-media campaign and toolkit that reflects the values, customs, and beliefs of all community members, without judgment or prejudice. The program will also create a community-led group to train clinical research teams on patient experiences and perspectives.
This grant has helped expand the OCECHE Diversity in Clinical Trials workgroup. The workgroup includes OCECHE Community Advisory Board members, cancer survivors, and patient advocates.
HealthyU is a University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center (UCCCC) cancer health education program that began for University of Chicago Medicine employees. It was later expanded to include the larger community. HealthyU has two online webinar series: Webinar Wednesdays, focused on clinical cancer topics, and Research Roundup, which covers UChicago cancer research.
The program provides community-focused educational materials, shares resources, works to increase cancer screenings and provides links to care.
This program has hosted over 70 different online webinars with 83 different speakers. Speakers have included University of Chicago faculty, clinical staff, researchers and community leaders. More than 500 people have attended and are taking part in the HealthyU programming.
Latinos United for Cancer Education, Research and Outreach (LUCERO) is UCCCC’s Latinx cancer control task force. LUCERO was started in 2019 in response to the growing Hispanic population in the UCCCC area. LUCERO’s goals are to assess and address the cancer burden and social determinants of health needs among diverse Latinx communities.
This work is done using education with evidence-based screening and prevention, and by sharing research among Hispanic residents. To guide outreach work, LUCERO completed a needs assessment with Chicagoland Latinx communities. Preliminary data from the needs assessment showed the main barriers for screening were lack of insurance, lack of transportation and fear of adverse results.
Clinical trials were seen as helpful but referrals from providers (55%) were larger in number than persons who took part in trials (3%).
Promoting prevention and screening
With its programs and partnerships, UChicago Medicine supports many cancer screening, prevention and educational initiatives for the communities we serve.