South Carolina Cancer Disparities Community Network

The South Carolina Cancer Disparities Community Network-II is one of 23 Community Networks Program Centers funded by the US National Cancer Institute. Our goal is to reduce cancer disparities through community-based participatory cancer education, research and training. Each of the individual Centers around the country targets disparate populations that are negatively affected by cancer and cancer-related diseases. Here in South Carolina, we focus on the African-American population, a group with a much higher-than-average cancer incidence in our region and an extraordinarily high mortality rate given the incidence. Our overarching goal for the SC Cancer Disparities Community Network-II is to make substantial contributions in our understanding of the underlying causes of cancer-related health disparities, discover and develop effective interventions that lower incidence, improve survival and reduce suffering and deliver these innovations to high-risk populations.

The Cores

 We accomplish the goals of the SC Cancer Disparities Community Network-II through four core services: the Training and Career Development Core, the Research Core, the Community Outreach Core and the Administrative Core.

Training and Career Development Core

The mission of the Training and Career Development Core is to improve the health of South Carolina’s communities by eliminating health disparities through community-based participatory research, multidisciplinary and culturally sensitive research and sustainable education and training programs. Our programs and projects include faculty mentoring programs, the training and health disparities seminar series and the interdisciplinary undergraduate minor in health disparities research and action.

Research Core

The Research Core is committed to conducting research with our community partners that is culturally competent and will ultimately lead to the identification of the causes of cancer-related health disparities. The research team develops programs that help decrease disparities and improve health outcomes for African Americans in South Carolina and beyond. The Research Core supports two ongoing programs: the SISTAS (Sistas Inspiring Sistas Through Activity and Support) Intervention, which is a healthy eating and exercise project among African-American women; and the Pilot Project, which focuses on determining African-American men’s and women’s knowledge about prostate cancer screening and knowledge and attitudes about prostate cancer research.

Community Outreach Core

The Community Outreach Core is a partnership of the State Baptist Young Woman’s Auxiliary of the Woman’s Baptist Education and Missionary Convention of South Carolina, Insights Consulting, Inc., Clemson University and the University of South Carolina. The primary focus of the Community Outreach Core is to reduce cancer health disparities and prevent and eliminate suffering due to cancer among African Americans in South Carolina. Our team works together with community partners using a community-based participatory approach, helping communities meet their needs that address factors related to cancer and cancer health disparities. We believe that the health of many South Carolina citizens is compromised because of the barriers associated with accessing and utilizing necessary health care; we also believe that communities can improve how they motivate, assist and facilitate community members’ access to health resources, health information and health programs.

Administrative Core

The Administrative Core provides the administrative support to allow the remainder of the cores and their leadership to function diligently. The Administrative Core exists to advance the mission of the South Carolina Cancer Disparities Community Network in addressing its overarching goal of contributing materially to discovery, development, delivery and dissemination of innovations aimed at reducing cancer disparities.