UIC School of Public Health
2005 Sponsored Activities Annual Report

FACULTY PROFILE

Elizabeth Calhoun, PhD
Associate Professor
Health Policy and Administration

The overall goal of my research is to eliminate racial/ethnic disparities in cancer. My research agenda includes several funded projects designed to achieve this goal. One project, REACH OUT, is part of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded research demonstration program, Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH 2010). It is a community-led, faith-based coalition comprised of 17 churches, a network of community health centers, and investigators from UIC. We collaborate to mobilize low-income women of color to seek early breast and cervical cancer detection services through education, outreach, and linkage to free and low-cost cancer screening services.

The overall aims of this demonstration project are to improve knowledge about breast and cervical cancer among Africa-American and Latina women and to improve cancer screening rates among uninsured and underinsured women. The goals of this program parallel the related goals of Healthy People 2010, which describe the nation’s health objectives for the decade.

Our evaluation efforts are designed to measure the effectiveness of our programmatic activities in improving knowledge about breast and cervical cancer and linking women to cancer screening services. To evaluate improvements in knowledge, we monitor the percentage of correct answers on a breast and cervical cancer post test and/or pre- and post-test. To evaluate linkage to cancer screening services, we monitor the number of referrals made for breast and cervical cancer screening services and the percentage of women who obtain the services to which they were referred. We also evaluate the unique contribution of using designated lay health navigators to help women obtain cancer screening services by comparing the receipt of services “before” and “after” adopting a lay navigator.

Another project, the Chicago Cancer Navigation Program, is a patient navigation intervention for lower-income patients in Chicago who need follow-up care for positive cancer screening tests of the prostate, colorectum, breast and cervix. Funded by the National Cancer Institute, this program targets veterans who receive follow-up care through the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center and affiliated Lakeside Community Based Outpatient Clinic (VA) health system (for prostate and colorectal cancer) and patients who receive care at Access Community Health Network (ACCESS). The complex systems of care and current rates of failure to follow-up abnormal findings provide a rationale for patient navigational support systems to improve follow-up of abnormal screening tests.

The project aims are: (1) to increase the proportion of patients with diagnostic evaluations among the navigator intervention sites as compared to both previous performance and the usual care control sites; (2) to improve mean time to a diagnostic resolution between abnormal screening and definitive follow-up for the intervention sites as compared to both previous performance and to the usual care control sites for patients who do get follow-up diagnostic evaluations; (3) to shorten the time to initiation of treatment following confirmatory diagnostic evaluation between the intervention and control sites; (4) to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the navigation intervention; (5) to identify psychosocial and demographic factors associated with navigation non-compliance; and (6) to assess patient satisfaction with the navigation experience.

Funding sources include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute.

Copyright 2006 Contact jckong@uic.edu for questions