Jennifer Allen, Tufts University
Location: Â Kresge G3
Working with Faith-based Organizations to Provide Cancer Control Interventions for Underserved Latinos
This study represents a shift in focus among cancer control interventions, from intervention delivery on an individual level, to a focus on enhancing the capacity of existing community organizations to activate collective resources to utilize available existing evidence-based interventions (EBIs) to address the priorities and needs of their members. Our goal was to develop and test an organizational-level intervention to enable faith-based organizations (FBOs) to adopt, adapt, implement and sustain evidence-based interventions (EBls) to address cancer disparities among Latinos. We FBOs since they play a highly prominent role in Latino community life, provide a trusted resource for spiritual guidance, communication, social support, and provide access to a large segment of the Latino population. Specific aims were to: (1) improve understanding of the organizational infrastructure, skills, and resources required by Latino churches to implement EBls for cancer control, (2) conduct a randomized trial with FBOs as the unit of intervention and analysis, in which organizations were assigned to either a "Capacity Enhancement" (CE) intervention or a "Standard Dissemination" (SD) condition. We seek to advance the state of implementation science by providing a conceptual model for translation of EBIs into community settings, tested measures to assess organizational readiness and motivations to adopt cancer control programs, and research-based recommendations for capacity-enhancement interventions.
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http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/about/files/2012/08/Longwood_Campus.pdf