(Reprint of a December 15, 2005 press release from the Cancer Resource Center of Mendocino County, subsequently published in the Mendocino Beacon, Fort Bragg Advocate-News, and other local editions.)
The Cancer Resource Centers of Mendocino County, with its partners, the Humboldt Community Breast Health Project and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) were featured speakers at the annual California Breast Cancer Research symposium in Sacramento in September 2005.
Research team members Sara O'Donnell, Julie Ohnemus, Jeff Belkora, and Lauren Franklin at the Symposium
The MHU (Mendocino, Humboldt, UCSF) Collaborative has received two successive grants from California Breast Cancer Research Program. The first research project is intended to improve Consultation Planning, a service offered by both the Cancer Resource Center of Mendocino County and Humboldt Community Breast Health Project. Consultation Planning helps a patient prepare for an upcoming appointment with a medical specialist. In response to community input the grant focused on ensuring that the service can be delivered to all residents, including Native American and Latina patients, who may face linguistic or cultural barriers to getting the health care they need. It also evaluated the feasibility of completing Consultation Planning by telephone in order to offer the service to remote residents.
The MHU 1 research project received the special designation of being one of five examples used to encourage California taxpayers to check-off a donation to the State-supported CBCRP on their tax returns. The MHU 1 research team consisted of the Principal Investigators Sara O'Donnell, Executive Director of the Cancer Resource Center Mendocino County, Dr. Jeff Belkora, UCSF, and Dr. Julie Ohnemus of Humboldt. Lauren Franklin served as Study Co-coordinator with Nancy Johnson, Ukiah Program Manager serving as interventionist. 46 community members, clients and volunteers were directly involved in the project.
MHU 2 will focus on helping patients understand, remember and act upon the information and advice they receive from their physicians. The MHU 2 team will include Sara O'Donnell, Nancy Johnson, and Lauren Franklin of Mendocino County working onece again with partners from UCSF and Humboldt County. The MHU 2 grant application had the distinguished honor of receiving the first ever perfect 10 score on the community involvement dimension amongst the submitted research projects, which are evaluated by an out-of-state panel of reviewers, including an advocate. Because one of the main missions of CBCRP is to support projects that will improve breast cancer care at the community level, the community investigators develop and administer the research project in equal partnership with the research institution.
A community meeting to present findings from MHU1 and gather input for MHU2 is being planned for January 24th in Fort Bragg in collaboration with the Mendocino Coast Clinics. A community meeting will also be held in Ukiah in February, date to be announced. For more information on this project and on the full services available to cancer patients in Mendocino County, please call the coast office at 937-3833 or the Ukiah office at 467-3828