Education & Awareness

MUSC Hollings Cancer Center offers a wide variety of community-based educational programs for the public and disparities-related research for students interested in pursuing a career in cancer research.

Through hands-on laboratory rotations with some of the state’s leading cancer researchers to cancer awareness forums, the center is committed to addressing the state’s cancer burden from all angles. To further enhance these programs, Hollings has established partnerships throughout the state and joint research projects to expand the reach of our work, including statewide cancer education and training programs with regional minority-serving higher education institutions.

MOVENUP

Since 2007, Hollings community health educators have conducted a statewide cancer education program called MOVENUP using a “Train the Trainer” approach. This training covers cancer prevention, screening, and treatment options and includes a module focused on clinical trials and their vital role in developing new, more effective approaches to prevent, diagnose, and treat cancer. Upon successful completion of training, community leaders serve as ambassadors empowered to share helpful, evidence-based information with members of their communities.

To date, MOVENUP has taken place in 19 primarily rural counties in the state with small groups of about 20 trainees per event. The more than 925 trained community leaders have now conducted educational sessions in their communities reaching more than 5,000 additional people.

SC AMEN Program

The SC AMEN Program targets prostate cancer disparities among Black men aged 40–69 in the state. The goal of the program is to encourage prostate cancer screening and awareness and promote healthy lifestyles. The community-based program delivers education sessions on prostate cancer screenings, provides navigation services to address barriers, and administers follow-up surveys. TD Bank is a generous sponsor of this program through their TD Ready Commitment.

NCI National Outreach Network Community Health Educator

For more than a decade, community health educators at Hollings have helped foster existing partnerships and established new ones to support, expand, and sustain the center’s efforts to address cancer disparities. Community health educators are responsible for identifying and responding to the needs and assets of various medically underserved South Carolina communities and promoting the uptake of the latest advances in cancer health. To date, these community health educators have conducted nearly 50 events and provided cancer prevention, screening, and early detection education to more than 2,700 participants.

Cultural Competence Training for Front Line Clinical Research Associates

Recognizing that the majority of professionals in the cancer care and clinical research fields are non-Hispanic whites, Dr. Marvella Ford organized a cultural competency training program that she has delivered at various professional conferences and meetings. Ford is now training Hollings community health educators to deliver this training to clinical trial offices and oncology clinical staffing units across the state.

The goal of the training is to equip clinical research associates, who are often on the front-lines of identifying and enrolling participants to cancer research studies, with the cultural and contextual competencies required to engage people who have been historically disenfranchised by the health care system.