Award helps local organizations tackle cancer disparities

Methodist Healthcare Foundation, in partnership with the University of Memphis and West Cancer Center, has received a Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

The award will be used to create an innovative approach for patients, researchers and health care providers to work together to improve cancer disparities.

The goal of the project is to build trust and lasting partnerships with hard-to-reach populations who have traditionally faced disparities in cancer care and outcomes and engage them in substantial patient-centered outcomes research efforts.

M. Paige Powell, Assistant Professor in the Division of Health Systems Management and Policy at the University of Memphis School of Public Health, will lead the engagement project along with Cynthia Tankersley, Director of Care Support Services at West Cancer Center. They will work in conjunction with Methodist Healthcare Foundation.

“Traditionally, doctors and researchers have come up with projects of what they think people need, which aren’t always the best,” Powell said. “So the idea of making patients part of the process, the money will be used more efficiently rather than the assumptions of what researchers provide.”

The focus is on the four major cancers that have disparities in Memphis: colon, lung, breast and prostate. A patient stakeholder council will consist of patients, researchers and health care providers.

Some of the patients and their family members will spend two to three hours per month together, while patient partners will spend two to four hours per week.

The council will recruit people from different neighborhoods in Memphis to participate in focus groups that will help develop training materials that patients and health care practitioners can use together.

“That training can be used nationally in cities that have disparities to bring doctors and patients together,” Powell said. “One of the main issues in Memphis is trust. They hear research and it’s off-putting. The main goal is this entire process should help bridge that trust and help build other tools to repair those relationships.”