Evaluating a Community-partnered Approach to Address Locally Relevant Determinants of Cancer Screening in New York City.

BACKGROUND

New York City (NYC) Cancer Outreach Network in Neighborhoods for Equity and Community Translation (CONNECT) aims to address determinants of cancer screening and access disparities in low-income NYC neighborhoods with high cancer burden.

OBJECTIVES

NYC CONNECT community partners formed neighborhood action councils (NACs) and engaged in mixed-method formative research and an iterative consensus-building process to co-identify structural and social determinants of cancer screening. The NACs co-developed with health and academic partners community-level strategies to address structural determinants of health. The objective of this manuscript is to describe participatory processes to engage and support community partners in low-income and high poverty communities and the evaluation of their functioning within the context of a community-academic research partnership.

METHODS

NYC CONNECT partnership development is informed by trauma-informed community building and community-based participatory research principles. Our mixed-methods partnership evaluation included surveys, qualitative interviews, and speaking time in meetings as a proxy for engagement.

LESSONS LEARNED: Trauma-informed community building and community-based participatory research informed co-learning and consensus-building activities among the NACs. Identifying and prioritizing structural and social determinants of health strategies was a non-linear, iterative process that required multiple interactive activities (e.g., asset mapping, impact to effort matrix, and voting).

CONCLUSION

Community engagement is a dynamic process that requires adapting to community partners' goals and sharing decision-making power.