Centering community-engaged research in NCI cancer centers: optimizing Community Outreach and Engagement (COE)

Although cancer prevention, care, and survivorship in the United States have dramatically improved over the last decade, inequities in morbidity and mortality among under-resourced populations have grown, mostly attributed to structural, societal, and institutional factors. To address inequities in cancer-related outcomes, community-engaged research (CEnR) and practice remains essential. Community-engaged research is generally supported by Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) units in National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers. For more than a decade, COE remains a requirement for comprehensive designation and is a significant factor in the overall cancer center scoring. Community engagement occurs on a continuum from community-engaged to community-based participatory research. Engaging communities experiencing inequities in cancer incidence, morbidity, and mortality to ameliorate factors contributing to poorer cancer-related outcomes remains a goal, albeit a challenging one. This commentary details both novel and successful approaches that researchers throughout the country have used to engage communities to address cancer-related inequities in their catchment areas by leveraging COE infrastructure to facilitate CEnR across research programs. We also highlight and forward recommendations from a recent scientific pre-conference workshop. Cancer center-led CEnR is critical to engaging with key communities, and yet there are tremendous opportunities to better articulate and implement approaches to effective engagement. Internal inequities and barriers in COE infrastructures and how researchers, directors, and stakeholders can collaborate to optimize cancer health outcome/CEnR are discussed, in addition to potential solutions involving collaboration with upstream policy stakeholders. In this commentary, we emphasize why this work remains an ongoing but critical priority.