Supporting High Risk African American Men in Research & Engagement in Decision Making for Lung Cancer Screening: The SHARED Project
The Story
Racial/ethnic minorities carry the greatest burden of lung cancer morbidity and mortality, with African American men (AAM) carrying the greatest incidence and mortality rates. Low dose helical computed tomography (LDCT) lung cancer early detection screening is recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF – B recommendation) among adults aged 55-80, with a history of smoking. However, few studies have addressed how to engage high risk AAM and their clinical care providers in LDCT. Supporting High Risk African American Men in Research & Engagement in Decision Making for Lung Cancer Screening is a ChicagoCHEC outreach research full project that aims to reduce lung cancer inequities across diverse populations of high-risk smokers.
What We’re Doing
We propose an innovative outreach intervention research project engaging AAM as Citizen Scientists to improve uptake of lung cancer screening. Citizen Scientists refer to lay persons who are not formally trained as scientists but who are trained to engage in research efforts responsive to community needs. Citizen Scientists have proven valuable in increasing communities’ knowledge and awareness of research, building trust in scientific research, and informing areas of research design and ethics.
We focus our Citizen Scientists efforts in this study on leveraging their social networks to engage AAM and supporting and enhancing an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) evidence-based Decision Aid (DA) that promotes shared decision making and subsequent lung cancer screening. The primary research question to be tested is whether lung cancer screening rates are higher among eligible AAM who receive a culturally targeted version of the AHRQ lung cancer screening decision-aid compared to the non-targeted decision-aid.
Engaging AAM as Citizen Scientists is expected to improve outreach and respond to the needs communities that may traditionally be “unengaged” in the research process and provides an opportunity for the group at the most increased risk for lung cancer, AAM, to directly drive uptake of evidence based screening.
Full Project #2 – Research Team & Partners
- Phoenix (Alicia) Matthews (Columbia University)
- Rohan Jeremiah (UIC)
- Josef Ben Levi (NEIU)
- David O’Dell (Northwestern University)
- Sage Kim (UIC)
Study Results
Study is underway. Please check back for study updates and results! Contact us to learn more or to get involved.
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