Diverse Approaches to Promote Cancer Prevention Among Youth

On August 5^th, DF/HCC’s Center for Cancer Equity and Engagement (CCEE) and the Viswanath lab, hosted a field trip that welcomed 18 high school students as part of a developmental project funded by a DF/HCC Incubator Award to Drs. K. Viswanath and Lindsay Frazier and led by Dr. Ava Kikut-Stein, postdoctoral research fellow in the Viswanath lab. The project received seed funding and leveraged partnerships with youth and young adult sports centers in Lawrence.

The goal of the project is to better understand the cancer communication behaviors of the teenagers and how they are related to cancer prevention. The program also aims to emphasize the importance of engaging youth in cancer prevention and healthy lifestyle choices, and to address broader behaviors that contribute to cancer risk and other diseases.

This emphasis requires “communication and engaging with teens,” says Dr. Kikut-Stein. “They have expertise that we don't have when it comes to social media, when it comes to their peer networks, and how we can better reach them in today's complex media environment.”

Collaborating with Community Partners
 

The Viswanath lab has maintained a longstanding partnership with the City of Lawrence for the past 17 years, and is excited to establish new partnerships with youth-oriented programs as part of this project. The Sueños Basketball program, which was founded in 2015, has initiatives that extend beyond athletic training and tournaments. They help youth participants get scholarships, apply to colleges, and provide educational opportunities.

“They are interested in partnering with us and bringing in cancer prevention and social media research into their existing program,” says Dr. Kikut-Stein. Sueños – run by Jose Dilone and Jacqueline Marte-Dilone – runs a paid professional development and wellness internship program for five weeks during the summer.  The lab also has another partnership with Michelle Adamic, Executive Director and Co-Founder of “Everyone is a Player (EAP),” a program focused on girls in sports. Adamic and Marte-Dilone, both members of the project’s community advisory board, recruited teens through the Sueños summer internship, Everyone is a Player, and broader local sports team networks to participate in the program.

Through these partnerships, the Viswanath lab recruited 19 high school students to be part of the internship program, with high school student interns receiving a stipend for once-a-week participation. This summer, the DFCI program hosted five sessions in Lawrence, from July 9 to August 8. The curriculum started with asking the teens about their life, community, and peer health priorities, and then introduced topics of interest related to cancer prevention, such as vaping, HPV vaccination, and mental health. Student interns chose a topic of interest from the three options, then teamed up to interview each other, conduct focus groups, and gauge their knowledge. Additionally, the interns were tasked with reviewing their social media feeds, finding relevant content, taking screenshots, and sharing posts related to various cancer prevention topics.

Students Become Community Health Researchers
 

Using survey results, student interns created videos and flyers about HPV vaccination, vaping, mental health. A field trip was held towards the end of the program, allowing the students to present their projects and what they learned to the PIs of the Incubator award, Drs. Frazier and Viswanath. The PIs also engaged with students. Dr. Frazier shared her experiences as a pediatric oncologist, while Dr. Viswanath discussed the principles of the Viswanath lab and emphasized the importance of the student interns’ work as community partners in preventing cancer.

During the field trip, students visited the DF/HCC Cell Manipulation Core Facility to see and learn more about other types of research being done at DFCI. During lunch, the students sat at different tables with DF/HCC CURE interns and a former U54 intern. The incubator research project has also engaged two college interns who were spending their summer in the lab through DF/HCC CURE and Harvard Chan.

“It is great because many of these high school students will be eligible for CURE in the next few years,” says Dr. Kikut-Stein. “So, it is great for them to know that the program exists.”

This summer program demonstrated the importance of engaging community partners to better understand their cancer prevention communication needs. By engaging high school students in identifying those needs and developing a survey, the research team hopes to determine more effective approaches to reach adolescents and address misinformation. Moreover, the program provided students with a meaningful exposure to public health research.

If you are interested in learning about upcoming events or finding ways to get involved with community-engaged research, please reach out to Jenny Reiner (Jennifer_reiner@dfci.harvard.edu) or the Center for Cancer Equity and Engagement (CCEE@partners.org).