How Partnerships can Bridge the Research to Community Gap: Community Outreach and Engagement Spotlight on Kerri Medeiros from the American Cancer Society

Kerri Medeiros, MPA, Senior Director of Cancer Center Partnerships at the American Cancer Society, oversees hospital and cancer center partnerships across New England. Kerri is a Community Advisory Board member for the Center for Cancer Equity and Engagement at the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. In this Community Outreach and Engagement spotlight, Kerri answers three questions about her work at the American Cancer Society and highlights opportunities for collaboration with the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center to address cancer disparities in Massachusetts.

Three Questions for Kerri 

        1. Can you tell us a little about your background and role at the American Cancer Society? 

I celebrated my 20-year anniversary with the American Cancer Society (ACS) earlier this year.  For most of my years at ACS, I have worked with health systems in Massachusetts.  In my current role, I oversee our hospital and cancer center partnerships across New England.  My team and I work with hospitals and cancer centers to support needs across the cancer continuum.  Through these local partnerships, we work to understand patients’ cancer prevention, detection, treatment, and survivorship needs and deliver programs, resources, and strategies to address those needs. The cancer survivors, health system partners, and community advocates I have worked with, along with my family and friends who have been impacted by cancer, motivate me each day to do what I do. 

        2. What are the priorities for the American Cancer Society, and what initiatives are underway or planned to address these priorities? 

The American Cancer Society (ACS) is the leading cancer-fighting organization with a vision of ending cancer as we know it, for everyone. We work to improve the lives of people with cancer and their families through advocacy, research, and patient support to ensure everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat, and survive cancer. 

Access to Care is one of our key priorities, and in Massachusetts, we try to meet these patients’ needs through a variety of transportation and lodging programs.  This includes our Road to Recovery volunteer program, transportation and lodging grants to health systems, a partnership with Extended Stay America for discounted hotel rates, and our AstraZeneca Hope Lodge in Boston.  The ACS Hope Lodge program provides a free home away from home for cancer patients and their caregivers. Each Hope Lodge community offers a supportive, homelike environment where guests can share a meal, join in the evening’s activities, or unwind in their own private room, while accessing the care they need. 

The ACS has also recently launched a new long-term study in 20 states, including Massachusetts. VOICES of Black Women aims to enroll at least 100,000 Black women in the United States over the next few years. The goal of this study is to better understand health conditions, like cancer, and how to improve overall health among Black women.  Information from our VOICES participants will help optimize the health of Black women for generations to come by giving ACS VOICES researchers the opportunity to: 

• Advance the knowledge of the health conditions that affect Black women. 

• Inform strategies for interventions to help Black women decrease their risk for certain diseases. 

• Inform advocacy efforts that initiate, support, or expand health policies based on evidence-based research. 

        3. How can DF/HCC researchers work with American Cancer Society to advance cancer prevention and treatment efforts and promote cancer equity? 

For researchers who have current or previous American Cancer Society (ACS) funding, we work together to promote their research projects to educate our organizational constituents and the general public on the life-saving work being done.  Additionally, we look for opportunities to collaborate with all our partners in areas where we have goal alignment to maximize our collective impact.  We also partner with researchers and clinicians to be expert speakers to help elevate our key initiatives, such as VOICES of Black Women and Hope Lodge, and to offer their perspective on how ACS programs and priorities help meet the needs of patients, families, and health systems. The ACS also offers evidence-based, understandable, and actionable resources to help health care teams educate and empower their patients and caregivers. Our website, Cancer.org, has easily shareable and downloadable resources with information for both patient and public audiences. These can be valuable resources for clinicians and researchers to refer to when working with community partners.  

Additionally, the ACS leverages staff and organizational expertise to continue to help advance health equity in cancer.  From ensuring greater diversity among clinical trial participants to improving access to quality, affordable health care, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network leads the charge at every level of government to reduce disparities in cancer care by advancing policies that break down existing barriers.  The ACS has also long been committed to advancing patient navigation initiatives to help reduce barriers to care.  This year, we have expanded our navigation work even further with training and credentialing for professional navigators, in active partnership with oncology providers and the cancer community. Standardized training is more important than ever, especially in an environment that strives to tailor to diverse populations. Reducing barriers with expertly trained navigators will lead to a positive impact that overall reduces health disparities among various patient groups.  Researchers within the Dana- Farber Harvard Cancer Center are encouraged to participate in these initiatives and more so that we can continue to work together to advance health equity. 

If you would like to collaborate with the Center for Cancer Equity and Engagement on community outreach and engagement activities with the American Cancer Society, please email Jenny Reiner (Jennifer_Reiner@dfci.harvard.edu) or Center for Cancer Equity and Engagement (CCEE@partners.org).