Reducing Cancer Disparities Through Innovative Community-Academic Partnerships

Principal Investigator

Manali Patel, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine (Oncology); Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Stanford University

Project Description

To address health disparities in cancer care and outcomes, this project aims to develop and test a community health worker (CHW) intervention to increase access to precision medicine approaches from cancer prevention and screening to diagnosis, treatment, survivorship, and end-of-life care. The team will develop a community advisory board, optimize a CHW model to meet community needs, implement and test the CHW intervention in Monterey County with low-income and minority patients, and evaluate the economic impact of the CHW intervention. This project will provide a reproducible model that can be scaled and spread for use in diverse community settings.